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EARLY CHRONICLERS OF EUROPE, 



ENGLAN D. 



/ BY 
JAMES GAIRDNER, 

AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE AND REIGN OF RICHARD III. 
"THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK," ETC. 



■PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE 

OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION APPOINTED BY THE 

SOCIETy FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 



LONDON: 

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, 
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C. ; 
43, queen victoria street, e.c. ; 
26, st. george's place, hyde park corner, s.w. 

BRIGHTON : 135, north street. 
New York : E. & J. B. YOUNG AND CO. 






2. osn 




PREFACE. 



THIS volume is one of a series intended to 
popularise the sources of mediaeval history, and 
is specially devoted to the chronicles of our own 
country. With such an object it is neither possible 
nor desirable to give an exhaustive account of all 
our early historians ; but a selection has been made 
of those writers whose style is most characteristic 
and whose works are best adapted for quotation. 
It is for these qualities rather than for their intrinsic 
value as original authorities that occasionally some 
of the minor chronicles have been treated at con- 
siderable length, while greater and more important 
works have been barely mentioned or have even 
been passed over in silence. No attempt, in fact, 
has been made to preserve proportion as between 
one writer and another ; but it is hoped that some 
general idea both of the wealth of mediaeval 
writings illustrative of English history and of their 



iv $wface. 

great variety of character may be obtained from a 
perusal of these pages. 

It is almost needless to say that- this work does 
not profess to be the fruit of great original research. 
In such a large field it is impossible not to be 
guided to a very considerable extent by the eyes of 
others ; and in many instances it will be seen that 
the author has acknowledged his obligations in the 
text. No mention, however, has been made of one 
modern writer to whose work he has been indebted 
in some portion of Chapter III. ; and he takes this 
opportunity of referring to Mr. Morison's valuable 
Life and Times of St. Bernard. 

A large number of the old English chronicles 
have in our day been rendered very accessible in 
the series of cheap English translations published 
by Bohn. These versions are of unequal merit ; 
but their publication is certainly a great boon to 
that reading public who desire to be made better 
acquainted with the chronicles of the Middle Ages. 
The extracts in the present volume are occasionally 
derived from Bohn's translations ; but in many 
cases the author has thought it better to supply 
a translation of his own. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

OUR EARLIEST HISTORIANS. 

Gildas on the destruction of Britain — Bede's account of the 
conversion of England to Christianity — Pope Gregory and 
the English slaves at Rome — King Edwin's consultation 
with his councillors about embracing Christianity — Paulinus 
made Bishop of York —King Edwin's good government — 
Abbey of Whitby — Story of Csedmon — Bede's other 
writings — Account of his death — Supernatural stories in 
Bede — Asser's Life of Alfred the Greats- Questions about 
the text — Interpolations — The story of Alfred and the 
cakes — How Alfred learned to read — How he divided 
his time 



CHAPTER II. 

RECORDS OF THE MONKS. 



The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle — Influence of the Norman Conquest 
— Chronicle of Battle Abbey — How monasteries fostered 
literature and civilization — Plorence of Worcester — Ead- 



vi ©ontentg. 



mer — His account of St Anselm — William of Malmesbury 
— Extracts touching the effects of the Conquest — The First 
Crusade — Robert of Normandy and Henry I. — The Gesta 
Stephani — Early report of a debate in the king's council — 
Extract touching Bristol and Bath — The Empress Maud — 
Henry of Huntingdon — Ordericus Vitalis .... 49 



CHAPTER III. 

NEW MONASTIC ORDERS — THE CRUSADES. 

Religious revival in Europe — New orders of monks practising 
austerity — The Cluniacs — Carthusians — Cistercians — St 
Bernard — His love of nature — Richard of Devizes — 
Massacre of the Jews at Richard I.'s coronation — Alleged 
crucifixion of a boy by the Jews of Winchester — Crusade 
of Richard L, and state of the kingdom in his absence — 
Expulsion of the monks of Coventry by Bishop Hugh de 
Nonant — Joceline of Brakeland's account of the monastery 
of St. Edmundsbury under Abbot Sampson — Description 
of the abbot — Disputes between the monastery and the 
burgesses — Privileges claimed against the archbishop — 
Abbot Sampson's journey to Rome — He holds his own 
against the king— Customs and privileges of the monastery 
— Dispute with the monks of Ely 109 

CHAPTER IV. 

IMAGINATIVE AND SOBER HISTORY — WELSH AND 
NORTHERN WRITERS. 

Robert of Gloucester's patronage of literature — Geoffrey of 
Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain — Its popularity 
— Its apocryphal character and extraordinary legends— 
Their acceptance as history — Clergymen more witty than 
monks — William of Newburgh denounces Geoffrey's J7is- 
tory — Giraldus Cambrensis also — Credulity of Giraldus — 
His account of his birth-place — His family and personal 
history— His election to St David's — Goes to Ireland 



@ontent& vii 



PAGB 



with Prince John — His Topographia Hibernuz — His Vatici- 
nal History of the Conquest of Ireland. — Description of 
Henry II. — Itinerary through Wales— Character of the 
North of England historians — Simeon of Durham— Ailred 
of Rievaulx — William of Newburgh— Roger of Hoveden — 
Chronicle of Melrose— Walter Hemingburgh— The Chro- 
nicle of Lanercost . » . , . . . .155 



CHAPTER V. 

RECORDS OF THE FRIARS. 

Actual results of the Crusades injurious to Christian faith and 
morals — St. Dominic and the Preaching Friars — The 
Albigenses — St. Francis — The Eastern leprosy — Devotion 
of the Franciscans — Thomas of Eccleston's account of their 
settlement in England — Anecdotes — Aquinas and the 
Schoolmen — Trivet's Annales — Stubbs's Archbishops of 
York — Franciscan Schoolmen — Roger Bacon, Scotus, 
Occam . . 199 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE ST. ALBAN'S HISTORIANS AND LATER 
MONASTIC CHRONICLES. 

Diminution in the number of monastic chronicles — Com- 
pensated at first by minuteness of detail — Position of St 
Alban's as a centre of news — First formation of the scrip- 
torium at St. Alban's — Roger of Wendover — Plan of his 
chronicle — His account of the papal interdict — Matthew 
Paris — His character as an historian — Extracts from his 
chronicle — William Rishanger — Trivet's account of 
Edward I. transcribed by him — Other continuators of 
Matthew Paris — Thomas Walsingham — His account of 
Wat Tyler's rebellion — Whethamstede's register — End 
of the age of monastic chronicles — Higden's Polychronicon 
— Trevisa — Caxton ...••••• 233 



viii ©onfcmtt. 

CHAPTER VII. 

RECORDS OF THE CITY. 

PAGF 

The Liber de Antiquis Legibus — French Chronicle of London — 
The Liber Albus — The Chronicle of London — Gregory's 
Chronicle — Account of Jack Cade's rebellion — Adventures 
of Margaret of Anjou — The Mayor of Bristol's Kalen-dar — 
Fabyan's Concordance of Histories — More's History of 
Richard III. — Extract — Shakespeare dramatized More's 
works — Hardyng's Chronicle — Hall's Chronicle — Polydore 
Vergil's History — Grafton's historical works — John Stow — 
His Summary, his Chronicle, and his Survey of London — 
Ireland — Holinshed's Chronicle— Sources of Shakespeare's 
historical plays . . % > . . . 284 




EARLY CHRONICLERS OF EUROPE. 



ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER I. 



OUR EARLIEST HISTORIANS. 

Gildas on the destruction of Britain — Bede's account of the conver- 
sion of England to Christianity — Pope Gregory and the English 
slaves at Rome — King Edwin's consultation with his councillors 
about embracing Christianity — Paulinus made Bishop of York — 
King Edwin's good government — Abbey of Whitby — Story of 
Csedmon — Bede's other writings — Account of his death — Super- 
natural stories in Bede — Asser's Life of Alfred the Great — Ques- 
tions about the text — Interpolations — The Story of Alfred and the 
cakes — How Alfred learned to read — How he divided his time. 

After the departure of the Romans from Britain, 
the history of this island is for some time enveloped 
in great obscurity, which is at the best but faintly 
relieved by Welsh traditions and unsatisfactory 
fragments of Welsh poetry. Left to themselves 
the Britons manifested no native capacity for 
ENG. B 



lEarlg ©fjromderg of iinglanfc. 



government and relapsed into comparative barbar- 
ism. Only about a century after the withdrawal 
of the conquerors do we meet with a British writer 
who tells us anything about the Britons ; and the 
picture he gives of their decay and demoralization 
is melancholy in the extreme. 

Nor can it be said that even here our scanty 
historical information rests on a basis altogether 
free from controversy. Indeed, the doubts and 
discussions to which the brief treatise of Gildas has 
given rise are out of all proportion to its magnitude. 
As to the personality of the writer it is unsatisfac- 
tory to find two ancient biographies utterly incon- 
sistent even with regard to his parentage and family, 
and manifestly full of fabulous matter throughout. 
In the absence of better information on this subject, 
even his age and nationality have been called in 
question ; and though his own testimony upon 
these points, if trustworthy, is unmistakeable, one 
daring critic suspects the work to be a forgery of a 
somewhat later time. Speculations of this kind, 
however, I shall for my part simply pass by ; and 
as the work is, under any circumstances, anterior to 
that of our next historian, the Venerable Bede, I 
will endeavour to give the reader some account of 
its general drift. 

The title which it commonly bears — Liber que- 
rulus de Excidio Britannia (a Book of Complaint 
touching the Destruction of Britain) — may not have 
been prefixed by the author himself, but indicates, 
nevertheless, truly enough its general character. 



ffiilfeag. 3 

The work, as it has come down to us, is divided 
into three sections, the first of which is called " the 
Preface," the second, " the History," and the third 
" the Epistle." But it is greatly questioned whether 
this division is the author's own, who, according to 
his most recent editor, called the whole simply an 
Epistle. In any case it is clear that "the History" 
is only meant to lead up to " the Epistle," and that 
the author's real aim was not to write a history at 
all, but to show the fearful degeneracy of the times, 
and to rebuke the rulers of the British nation for 
the shameful perfidy with which they dishonoured 
their Christian profession. In the opening words 
of " the Epistle " the general state of matters is 
described as follows : — 

" Britain has kings, but they are tyrants ; she has judges, 
but impious ones ; often engaged in plunder and rapine, but 
preying upon the innocent ; avenging and protecting, indeed, 
but only robbers and criminals. They have an abundance 
of wives, yet are they addicted to fornication and adultery ; 
they are ever ready to take oaths, and as often perjure them- 
selves ; they make a vow and almost immediately act falsely ; 
they make war, but their wars are against their country- 
men, and are unjust ones ; they rigorously prosecute thieves 
throughout the country, but those who sit at table with them 
are robbers, and they not only cherish but reward them ; 
they give alms plentifully, but on the other hand they heap 
up an immense mountain of crimes ; they sit on the seat of 
justice, but rarely seek for the rule of right judgment ; they 
despise the innocent and the humble, but seize every occasion 
of exalting to the utmost the bloody minded, the proud, 
murderers, the combined and adulterers, enemies of God, 
who ought to be utterly destroyed and their names forgotten." 



lEaily ©fironicfcrg of lEnglanti. 



The turgid Latin in which all this is set forth is 
certainly not to be commended as a model of literary 
style. It is a sort of decayed Ciceronianism, in 
which a great multiplicity of hard words is made 
to do the duty of a few well-ordered and weighty 
ones. But after all the style itself is only an addi- 
tional illustration of that which is the main subject 
of the book — the general decay of civilization, 
culture, and morality, which had ensued since the 
Romans left the island. The author is in dead 
earnest, and uses a great array of heavy words in 
the hope that some of them may take effect upon 
the heavy and sluggish intellects of a demoralized 
people. And from this general statement of the 
case he proceeds to special instances, attacking the 
different British princes by name, for their gross 
immoralities, and finally addressing a general warn- 
ing to them by examples from Old Testament 
history, and from the words of the Prophets. 

Such was the aim and object of this work of 
Gildas ; and to treat him as an historian in the 
ordinary sense of the word is not to do him justice. 
He was an historian only so far as history lay in 
his path towards another object ; and as an historian 
he confesses that he labours under very great dis- 
advantages. 

" I will endeavour," he says, " to give an account both of 
those evils which Britain suffered in the time of the Roman 
emperors and of those which she inflicted on other citizens 
afar off ; yet, so far as I shall be able to do it, it will not be 
so much from the literature of this country or from the memo- 



CMltiag. 5 

rials of its writers (because, if there ever were such, they have 
either been destroyed by the fires of the enemy, or carried off 
by the ships of citizens who went into exile), as from a narra- 
tive [supplied to me] beyond sea, which, being interrupted by 
frequent gaps, is not by any means satisfactory." 

In fact, the information possessed by Gildas as to 
what happened long before his own day was not 
only scanty, but I must add not much to be relied 
on. From the analysis of the apparent sources of 
the work made by Sir Thomas Hardy, we may 
presume that the earlier part, at least, of the narra- 
tive obtained beyond sea consisted of fragments of 
the writings of Eusebius and St. Jerome relating to 
Britain, and perhaps of the ecclesiastical history of 
Sulpicius Severus. If it extended much later it 
could not have been very trustworthy ; for the 
notions of Gildas, at least as to the order and suc- 
cession of events, are exceedingly confused and 
inaccurate, nor are they in harmony with well- 
informed Greek and Roman writers as to the events 
themselves. But from the early part of the fifth 
century Greek and Roman writers tell us nothing 
of the affairs of Britain, and Gildas is the original 
authority used by Bede and succeeding writers as 
the basis of our early English history.* It is he 
who reports how the Britons, after their abandon- 
ment by the Romans, being molested by the Picts 
and Scots, invoked again their old conquerors 
and rulers to save them from the barbarians, 

* See Sir T. Hardy's remarks in his Descriptive Catalogue of 
Materials relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, 
vol. i. pp. 136, 137. 



Sadg ©Sronulotf of lEnglanl). 



and wrote to Aetius the Consul the desponding 
appeal, headed "the groans of the Britons." 
The reader is doubtless familiar with the words of 
that letter as translated by Hume : — " The bar- 
barians, on the one hand, chase us into the sea ; 
the sea, on the other, throws us back on the bar- 
barians ; and we have only the hard choice left us 
of perishing by the sword, or by the waves." It 
is Gildas, also, who reports how, when the Romans 
could no longer assist the islanders, the latter un- 
wisely met the difficulty by calling in " the fierce 
and impious Saxons — a race hateful both to God 
and man, to repel the invasions of the northern 
nations." On the extreme impolicy and wicked- 
ness of this step our author makes severe reflec- 
tions. " Nothing," he says, " was ever so pernicious 
to our country." Its immediate result is described 
as follows : — " Then a litter of whelps bursting 
forth from the lair of the barbaric lioness in three 
keels as they call them in their language, or long 
ships as we should say in ours, with their sails 
wafted by the wind, and with omens and prophecies 
favourable, by which it was foretold that they 
should occupy the country to which they were sail- 
ing three hundred years, and half of that time, a 
hundred and fifty years, should plunder and despoil 
the same." They landed on the eastern side of the 
island as allies of the southern natives ; but having 
once obtained a footing they strengthened them- 
selves by fomenting the internal dissensions of the 
-(slanders. The author goes on to state, though 



ffitt&ajs. 7 

in obscure and turgid language, that commotions 
spread from sea to sea, even to the Western ocean, 
which he regards as the vengeance of the Almighty 
on the former sins of the inhabitants. But the pe- 
culiar horror of these events was the overthrow of 
Christianity and civilization, recalling the words of 
the Psalmist, " O God, the heathen are come into 
Thine inheritance ; Thy holy temple have they 
defiled."* " They have cast fire into Thy sanc- 
tuary ; they have defiled the dwelling-place of Thy 
name." t 

Then following up this figure of speech in a 
passage which is very obscure, but which has been 
translated as follows, he goes on to say — 

" So that all the columns were levelled with the ground by 
the frequent strokes of the battering ram, all the husbandmen 
routed, together with their bishops, priests, and people, whilst 
the sword gleamed and the flames crackled around them 
on every side. Lamentable to behold, in the midst of the 
streets lay the tops of lofty towers, tumbled to the ground, 
stones of high walls, holy altars, fragments of human bodies 
covered with livid clots of coagulated blood, looking as if 
they had been squeezed together in a press, and with no 
chance of being buried save in the ruins of the houses, or in 
the ravening bellies of wild beasts and birds ; with reverence 
be it spoken for their blessed souls, if, indeed, there were 
many found who were carried at that time into the high 
heaven by the holy angels. So entirely had the vintage, 
once so fine, degenerated and become bitter, that in the 
words of the prophet there was hardly a grape or ear of corn 
to be seen where the husbandman had turned his back." 

It is added that "of the miserable remnant," 

* Ps. lxxix. I. f Ps- bcxiv. 7- 



8 ^arlg <&§tomlm of lEnglant). 

some were taken in the mountains and murdered 
with great slaughter ; others, oppressed by hunger, 
gave themselves up as slaves, even at the risk of 
being slain on the spot ; others escaped beyond 
sea ; while others succeeded in preserving their 
lives, though in constant fear and danger, among 
the mountains, precipices, and forests. Nevertheless, 
after a time, the islanders took arms under the 
Roman General Ambrosius Aurelianus, who alone 
of all that nation, it is said, " was by chance left 
alive in the confusion of that troubled period," and 
obtained some advantage over their persecutors. 
The war continued then for some time with varied 
success, till forty-four years after the landing of the 
Saxons the islanders gained a decided victory at 
the battle of Mount Badon, which was followed by 
some other successes. It was at that time, Gildas 
tells us, that he himself was born. Yet even to the 
time at which he wrote the cities were not inhabited 
as before ; and though the foreign foe had ceased 
to give trouble civil wars still continued. It was 
true the remembrance of that horrible desolation 
and of their unexpected deliverance exercised for 
a time a beneficial influence upon kings, magis- 
trates, and people, who with their priests and clergy 
led orderly and decent lives. But after that gene- 
ration had passed away, the islanders, forgetting 
everything but their present prosperity, abandoned 
truth and justice and relapsed into every kind of 
wickedness, all but a very small company ; so few, 
says the writer, that our holy mother Church could 



(Effoajs. 9 

hardly see them reposing in her bosom — by whose 
prayers, nevertheless, as by pillars, the infirmity of 
the nation was sustained. These things, the author 
wishes us to understand, he writes not in anger but 
in pure sorrow ; for it is needless to conceal what 
foreign nations know and cast in our teeth. 

Such is the tenor of this book of Gildas, be it 
history, epistle, or what it may. A multitude of 
questions rise up as to the sufficiency of his testi- 
mony, the completeness of the Saxon conquest and 
various other points in connection with it, which 
we may here dismiss. But no one will doubt the 
general truth to which this remarkable composition 
bears witness — that the withdrawal of the Romans 
and the settlement in the island of the pagan 
Saxons led to something that might well be called 
" the destruction of Britain ; " that the new comers 
made havoc of civilization, and that the early 
planted Christianity of the Britons, cut off from the 
Christianity of Europe, became so degenerate and 
corrupt that it had no influence whatever in miti- 
gating the fury of the conquerors. The absence of 
all other records on this point only confirms the 
solitary testimony of Gildas ; for a civilized people 
always preserves some evidences of its civilization. 
But here we have no other contemporary docu- 
ments — no other fruit of that doomed and decay- 
ing nationality than this pitiful lament over its 
decay. In another generation or two the Britons 
will have ceased to exist as a nation altogether, or 
ceased, at all events, to be any longer called by 
that name. 



io lEarlg ®f)fomcfasS of 1Englant>. 

The revival of civilization came again from 
Rome ; not, as at first, by the subjugation of the 
island by Roman arms, but by an influence still 
more powerful and more humanizing. The tri- 
umphant pagans who now possessed the land 
learned the tidings of salvation from the preaching 
of St. Augustine, and became more gentle than 
the subject race had been in the days of their 
independence. For the record of the mode in 
which the change was wrought we are indebted to 
Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation ; 
and it is certainly the most interesting narrative to 
be found in our early annals. We therefore present 
it to the reader in the very words of the original 
author, translated from the Latin : — 

"In the year of our Lord 582, Maurice, the fifty-fourth from 
Augustus, ascended the throne, and reigned twenty-one 
years. In the tenth year of his reign, Gregory, a man con- 
spicuous for his learning and ability, having attained the 
pontificate of the Roman Apostolic See, ruled it for thirteen 
years, six months, and ten days ; who, being warned by a 
divine instinct, in the fourteenth year of the same emperor, 
and about the one-hundred and fiftieth after the coming of 
the English into Britain, sent the servant of God, Augustine, 
and several others along with him, monks who feared the 
Lord, to preach the word of God to the English nation. But 
when in obedience to the Pope's commands they had begun 
to take that work in hand, and had proceeded some way 
upon the journey, they were seized with a sluggish fear, and 
thought rather to return home than go to a barbarous, fierce, 
and unbelieving nation, whose language even they did not 
understand ; and this they all agreed was the safer course. 
And straightway they sent home Augustine, whom he had 
determined to appoint their bishop if they v/ere received by 



33cfce. i x 

the English, to obtain leave of the blessed Gregory by humble 
supplications, that they should not undertake so dangerous, 
toilsome, and uncertain a journey. The pope sent them a 
letter of exhortation persuading them to go forward in the 
work, relying on the aid of the divine Word ; of which letter 
the tenor was as follows : — 

" ' Gregory, the servant of the servants of God. Forasmuch 
as it had been better not to begin a good work than in 
thought to desist from that which is begun, it behoves you, 
my beloved sons, by all means to complete the good work 
which with the Lord's aid you have entered upon. Let not 
therefore the toil of the journey nor the tongues of men who 
speak evil deter you ; but with all assiduity and fervour 
accomplish the things which, prompted by God, you have 
commenced, knowing that the glory of an eternal reward 
follows a great labour. Obey in everything your chief 
Augustine who is returning to you, and whom I appoint to 
you as abbot, knowing that whatever shall be effected by 
you according to his direction will be in every way for the 
advantage of your souls. Almighty God protect you by His 
grace, and grant that I may in the eternal country see the 
fruit of your labour ; so that, although I cannot labour with 
you, I shall be found along with you in the joy of the reward, 
because at least I desire to labour. God keep you in safety, 
my most beloved sons. Given on the loth of the kalends of 
August (23rd July) in the fourteenth year of the reign of 
our most pious and august lord, the Emperor Mauritius 
Tiberius, the thirteenth year after the consulate of our said 
lord, Indiction* xiv.' 

"The same venerable Pope then sent also a letter to 
^Etherius, archbishop of Aries, that he should give a kind 
reception to Augustine on his way to Britain ; of which letter 
this was the tenor : — 

* The Indictions were another mode of reckoning years. They 
took in a cycle of fifteen years, the successive years being numbered 
Indiction I., Indiction II., and so forth, to Indiction XV., after 
which the numbers were repeated, begining again with Indiction I. 



12 lEarlg ©Jjtontcln'g of lEnglanD, 

" ' To his most revere7id and most holy brother and fellow- 
bishop AZtherius, Gregory servant of the servants of God. 

" ' Although with priests who have the charity which is well 
pleasing to God, religious men stand in need of no man's 
recommendation, yet as a fitting opportunity of writing offers 
itself, we have determined to send our letters to your brother- 
hood, * intimating that we have sent thither for the good of 
souls the bearer of these presents, Augustine, the servant of 
God, of whose assiduity we are assured, with other servants 
of God besides, whom it is needful that your holiness hasten 
to assist with sacerdotal zeal and afford him comfort. And 
that you may be the more ready to grant him assistance, we 
have enjoined him particularly to relate to you the cause, 
being assured that when it is fully known to you, you will 
apply yourself for the love of God to grant him succour, for 
the case requires it. We also commend to your charity in 
all things Candidus the priest, our common son, whom we 
have sent for the government of a small patrimony in our 
church. God preserve thee in safety, most reverend brother. 
Given on the ioth of the kalends of August (23rd July) in 
the fourteenth year of the reign of our lord the Emperor 
Mauritius Tiberius, the thirteenth year after the consulship 
of the same lord, Indiction xiv.' 

" Thus strengthened by the confirmation of the blessed 
Father Gregory, Augustine, with the servants of Christ who 
went along with him, returned to the work of the Word, and 
arrived in Britain. At that time Ethelbert was king in Kent, 
a most powerful sovereign who had extended his sway to the 
confines of the great river Humber, by which the southern 
and the northern peoples of the English are divided. On the 
Eastern side of Kent is Thanet, an island not very small, — 
that is to say of the magnitude of 600 families, according to 
the customary computation of the English, — which is divided 

* It will be observed that "your brotherhood" (a title which 
sounds rather unconventional in English) and "your holiness" 
were modes of address used at this time even by the chief bishop of 
Christendom in addressing other bishops. 



from the mainland by the river Wantsum, about three furlongs 
(stadia) in breadth* and fordable only in two places, for either 
end of it runs into the sea. On this island landed Augustine, 
the servant of God, and his companions, a company, it is 
said, of nearly forty men. They had by order of the blessed 
Pope Gregory taken interpreters of the nation of the Franks, 
and sending to Ethelbert, Augustine informed him that he 
had come from Rome, and brought the best possible of 
tidings, which promised those who obeyed the message 
eternal joy in heaven, and a kingdom that would be without 
end with the living and true God. Hearing this he com- 
manded them to remain in that island where they had landed, 
and that all necessaries should be supplied to them, until he 
should consider what to do with them ; for the fame of the 
Christian religion had already reached him, as he had a 
Christian wife of the nation of the Franks, by name Bertha, 
whom he had received from her parents, on the condition 
that she should be allowed to continue without interruption 
the rite of her religion with a bishop whom they had given 
her to assist her faith, whose name was Luidhard. Some 
days later, accordingly, the king came to the island, and 
sitting in the open air, commanded Augustine and his com- 
panions to come and confer with him. For he had taken 
the precaution that they should not come to him in any 
house, lest according to an old superstition if they practised 
any magical arts they might impose upon him, and so get the 
better of him. But they came furnished with divine, not 
with magic virtue, bearing a silver cross for a banner, and a 
figure of our Lord and Saviour painted in a picture, and 
singing litanies petitioned the Lord for the eternal salvation 
alike of themselves and of those on whose account and to 
whom they had come. And when at the king's command 
they had sat down, and preached the Word of life to him and 
all his attendants there present, he replied, ' Your words are 

* The stream which divides Thanet from the rest of Kent is in 
our day extremely narrow, and is called the Stour ; but in Bede's 
time it formed a very broad channel, and was called the Wantsum. 



14 lEarlg ©fircmtckts of lEnglanO. 

fair, and the promises you bring, but as they are new and 
uncertain, I cannot give my assent to them and relinquish 
the customs that I have so long observed along with the 
whole English nation. But as you are travellers who have 
come a long distance hither, and, as I believe I apprehend 
your meaning, you are desirous to communicate to us the 
things which you yourselves believe to be true and excellent, 
we will not molest you, but rather give you favourable enter- 
tainment and take care to supply you with things necessary 
for your support ; nor do we forbid you to preach and gain 
as many as you can to the faith of your religion.' He 
accordingly gave them an abode in the city of Canterbury, 
which was the capital of all his kingdom, and, as he had pro- 
mised, along with the supply of temporal food did not refuse 
them liberty of preaching. It is reported also that as they 
drew near the city, after their manner, with the image of the 
great king our Lord Jesus Christ, they sang in concert this 
litany, J We beseech Thee, O Lord, in all Thy mercy, that 
Thy fury and Thine anger be turned away from this city, 
and from Thy holy house, for we have sinned. Hallelujah.' 

" As soon as they entered the dwelling-place assigned to 
them they began to imitate the apostolic life of the primitive 
Church ; serving that is to say, with constant prayers, watch- 
ings, and fastings ; preaching the wovd <>f life to whom they 
could ; despising the things of this world as not their own, 
accepting only the things which seemed necessary for susten- 
ance from those whom they instructed ; living themselves in 
all respects according to what they taught, and with a mind 
prepared to suffer any adversity or even to die for the truth 
they preached. In short, some believed and were baptized, 
admiring the simplicity of their innocent life, and the sweet- 
ness of their heavenly doctrine. Now there was near that 
city, on the east side, a church raised of old in honour of St. 
Martin, when the Romans as yet inhabited Britain, in which 
the Queen, who, as we have already mentioned, was a 
Christian, used to pray. In this, accordingly, they also first 
began to meet, to sing, to pray, to say masses, to preach and 



3foUe. i s 



to baptize, until, the king being converted to the faith, they 
obtained a greater liberty of preaching everywhere and build- 
ing or restoring churches. But when he also among others, 
captivated by the unsullied life of the holy men and with 
their most delightful promises, the truth of which they 
confirmed by the exhibition of many miracles, believed and 
was baptized, greater numbers began daily to pour in to hear 
the word, and, forsaking their heathen rites, to associate them- 
selves by believing to the unity of the Holy Church of Christ ; 
whose faith and conversion the king so far encouraged, 
as that he compelled none to embrace Christianity, but 
only showed greater affection to believers as fellow-citizens 
with him in the kingdom of heaven ; for he had learned 
from his teachers and the authors of his salvation that the 
service of Christ ought to be voluntary, not enforced. Nor 
was it long before he gave those teachers a settled residence, 
suitable to their degree, in Canterbury, his metropolis, with 
at the same time necessary possessions of divers kinds." 

A little later in his history, after recording the 
death of Pope Gregory, Bede relates the familiar 
tradition as to the circumstance which first inspired 
him with the idea of Christianizing the Britons. 
And though the histoiian is careful to give it only 
as a tradition or popular belief, which cannot in 
any case be considered so certain, or even so 
worthily characteristic of the pope himself, as the 
correspondence with St. Augustine, the story is 
so full of graphic interest, that we reproduce it here 
as it was originally told. 

" Nor is the belief to be passed by in silence which has 
come down to us by the tradition of our ancestors as to the 
cause by which St. Gregory was moved to take such unre- 
mitting interest in the salvation of our nation. They say that 
one day certain merchants having lately arrived [at Rome], a 



1 6 JSarljj ©fttontcferg of lEnglanD, 

quantity of goods was brought into the market for sale, and 
many people had resorted thither to buy ; and, among the 
rest, Gregory himself came and saw, together with other mer- 
chandise, some boys exposed for sale, their bodies white, their 
faces handsome, and their hair remarkably beautiful. And 
having looked at them, he asked, as they say, from what 
country or land they had been brought, and was told from 
the island of Britain, whose inhabitants were of such appear- 
ance. Again he asked whether the same islanders were 
Christians or were still involved in pagan errors, and was told 
that they were pagans. Then, fetching a deep sigh from the 
bottom of his heart, ' Alas ! the pity,' said he, ' that the author 
of darkness should possess men of so bright a countenance, 
and that persons conspicuous for so much grace of aspect 
should have minds void of inward grace !' He therefore 
again asked what was the name of that nation. He was 
answered that they were called Angles. ' That is well,' said 
he, ' for they have angelic faces, and such men ought to be 
co-heirs with the angels in heaven. What is the name,' he 
said, ' of the province from which they have been brought ? ' 
He was told that the people of that province were called 
Deiri. ' That is well,' he said again, ' Deiri, withdrawn from 
wrath {de ira) and called to the mercy of Christ. How is the 
king of that province named ? ' The answer was that he was 
called ^Ella; and he, alluding to the name, said 'Allelujah ! 
the praise of God the Creator must be sung in those parts. 
And repairing to the bishop of the Roman and Apostolic see 
(for he himself had not yet been made pontiff) he asked him 
to send into Britain to the nation of the Angles some ministers 
of the Word, by whom they might be converted to Christ, 
declaring himself ready to undertake the work with the Lord's 
assistance if only the Pope were pleased that he should do so. 
Which thing he was not for a while able to perform, because, 
although the Pope was willing to grant him what he asked, 
yet the citizens of Rome could not allow him to withdraw so 
far from the city. Afterwards, when he was himself made 
Pope, he achieved the work so long desired, sending other 



preachers, indeed, but himself aiding by his exhortations and 
prayers that their preaching should bear fruit." 

Thus by the efforts of Gregory and St. Augustine 
not only were the seeds of true religion sown among 
a barbarous people, but a hierarchy was established 
in the land to preserve the fruits that had been sown. 
For whatever may be said in favour of desultory 
missionary efforts on which much zeal has undoubt- 
edly been expended in modern times, it is clear 
that the religion of Christ would have made little 
progress among our ancestors without an organized 
society, having intercourse with other societies 
abroad, and receiving continual encouragement and 
exhortation from an authority of considerable 
weight at Rome. Even as it was, there were very 
serious relapses into idolatry. After Ethelbert's 
death his son remained for some time a pagan, and 
became a persecutor, so that almost every minister 
of Christianity was driven to take refuge abroad. 
But Bede being a north countryman was specially 
interested in the story of the conversion of Edwin, 
king of Northumbria, which was effected partly by 
the influence of his wife, Ethelberga, the daughter 
of Ethelbert of Kent. The Pope, at least, wrote her 
a letter to encourage her efforts in that direction ; 
but the principal cause of his conversion, according 
to the historian, was an angelic vision that he re- 
membered having had before he became king, at a 
time when his life was in great danger from his 
enemies. In fulfilment of a vow which he then 
made, Paulinus urged him to become a Christian, 

ENG. C 



1 8 lEarlg ©firontclerg of lEnglanti. 

and he expressed his willingness to do so after 
hearing the advice of his councillors, whom he 
accordingly convoked to discuss the question. In 
their opinion the worship of the pagan gods was 
utterly futile, and there seemed much to say for the 
adoption of a new religion which promised more 
solid comfort; so Edwin suffered himself to be 
baptized. 

The description of this council by the historian 
contains some points of graphic interest, both as 
regards the event itself, and as reflecting the mode 
of life among our forefathers. The reader will 
therefore doubtless be glad of the following extract. 
After reporting the speech of one councillor, the 
narrative goes on as follows : — 

"To whose persuasion another of the king's chief men 
giving his assent, added with prudent words — 'To me, O 
king, the present life of man on earth appears in comparison 
with that time which is unknown to us, even as when you sit 
at supper in winter time with your commanders and ministers, 
a fire being kindled in the midst and the room being warmed, 
while wintry storms of rain or snow prevail out of doors, a 
sparrow happens to come and fly swiftly through the house. 
Scarcely has it entered at one door when it is out at the other. 
And during the time that it is within it is not touched by the 
winter storm ; but after a brief interval of calm, escaping for 
a moment out of winter, it returns into winter again, and 
vanishes from your eyes. So this life of man appears for a 
short space, but what shall follow or what may have gone 
before we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine 
has brought anything more certain, it seems well worth fol- 
lowing.' 

" The other elders and councillors of the king, divinely 
admonished, spoke to the same effect. But Coin (mentioned 



33etif. 



i9 



before as the chief priest of the pagan worship) added that 
he wished to hear more attentively Paulinus himself discours- 
ing- of the God whom he preached ; and when the latter had 
done so at the king's command, he exclaimed on hearing 
his words, ' I have long since been sensible that what we 
worshipped was nothing, because the more diligently I sought 
for truth in that worship the less I found it. But now I 
openly profess that in this preaching is manifest that truth 
which is able to confer upon us the gift of eternal life, salva- 
tion, and happiness. I therefore propose, O king, that we 
forthwith give over to cursing and to fire the temples and 
altars that we have consecrated without any fruit of useful- 
ness.' 

" In short the king openly gave his assent to the preaching 
of the blessed Paulinus, and renouncing idolatry confessed 
that he received the faith of Christ. And when he asked the 
said priest of his former worship who ought first to profane 
the altars and temples of the idols, with the enclosures by 
which they were surrounded, he answered, ' I ; for who can, 
more properly than myself, for an example to all men, destroy 
the things which I worshipped in foolishness through the 
wisdom given me by the true God ? ' " 

The historian then tells us how Edwin was 
baptised at York on Easter Day, being the 12th 
April (which fixes the year as a.d. 627), " in the 
Church of St. Peter the Apostle, which he himself 
built of timber, hurrying on the work while he was 
being catechised and instructed in order to receive 
baptism." He appointed that city to be the see of 
Paulinus, the bishop who instructed him, and after 
his baptism built a larger and a finer church of 
stone there, enclosing within its walls the original 
wooden oratory. The king's example had a power- 
ful effect upon the Northumbrians ; for Paulinus, 



20 lEarljj ©Jronfclerg of 3Englant>. 

going once with the king and queen to a royal 
country seat near Wooler, was occupied for thirty- 
six whole days from morning to night in nothing 
else than catechising and baptising converts in the 
river Glen. The zeal of Edwin also persuaded the 
king of the East Saxons to receive the faith, and 
Paulinus carried his missionary efforts south of the 
Humber into the province of Lindsey. The memory 
of these things had not entirely faded at the time 
Bede wrote. A priest well known to him had con- 
versed with one of the original converts whom 
Paulinus had baptised ; and by his report he was 
tall in stature, a little bent, with black hair, lean 
visage, and slender aquiline nose ; his aspect at 
once venerable and inspiring. 

Very remarkable is the story how Christianity 
made its way when apparently it was all but ex- 
tinguished ; how the pagan hordes of Mercia over- 
threw and killed the good king Edwin in battle, yet 
the son of the Mercian king became a Christian ; 
how the kingdom of Northumbria was nearly 
crushed, and how king Oswy, after vainly en- 
deavouring to buy peace from his enemies, vowed 
that in the event of victory he would dedicate his 
daughter to the service of God, and give twelve 
farms for the endowment of monasteries. The 
battle was fought near Leeds, and king Oswy was 
victorious ; on which his daughter became a nun 
under the abbess Hilda, at Hartlepool, till two 
years later she removed with the abbess to the 
more magnificent foundation that Hilda had begun 



9SeDe . 2 1 

at Whitby. Even so in another part of the island 
the East Saxons returned to the faith that they 
had once cast off; after which the South Saxons 
were for the first time converted. But for these 
things we must be content to refer the reader to 
the pages of Bede himself. Neither can we afford 
to dwell upon a number of very tempting and 
beautiful stories, such as those of St. Hilda just 
mentioned, who founded the abbey of Whitby, — of 
Csedmon the poet, who could not sing at feasts 
after the fashion of his countrymen till he was in- 
spired with. the love of sacred subjects and entered 
St. Hilda's monastery, — of St. Cuthbert, whose 
bright and winning countenance induced all men 
to unveil their hearts to him, — of Adamnan, abbot 
of Iona, who brought the Irish to conform to the 
Catholic rule of Easter, but could not prevail with 
his own monastery to do the same. This contro- 
versy about Easter occupies a very conspicuous 
place in the history. It was settled in a great 
council held at St. Hilda's monastery of Whitby. 

At the end of his work Bede gives a complete 
chronological summary of the events related, from 
the invasion of Julius Caesar in the year B.C. 60, to 
A.D. 731. He also adds a postscript, giving some 
particulars about himself and his literary labours, 
which convey a most astonishing impression of his 
literary activity. His object in writing it, however, 
seems to have been in the first place to authenticate 
what he had said by showing the reader his own 
devotion to letters, and enabling him to judge for 



lEarlg ©jjronfrlerg of lEnglanti. 



himself what opportunities the writer had for 
collecting information : — 

" Thus much of the ecclesiastical history of the Britons, 
and especially of the English nation, as far as I could learn, 
either by the writings of the ancients, or from the tradition 
of our ancestoi's, or by my own knowledge, I, Bede, a servant 
of God and priest of the monastery of the blessed Apostles 
Peter and Paul which is at Wearmouth and Jarrow, have 
composed. And being born in the territory of that monas- 
tery, when I was seven years old I was given to be educated 
to the most reverend Abbot Benedict, and afterwards to 
Ceolfrid ; and having spent my whole life since that time in 
the same monastery, I have devoted myself entirely to the 
study of Scripture, and at intervals between the observance 
of regular discipline and the daily care of singing in church 
[ always took delight in learning, or teaching, or writing. 
In the nineteenth year of my life I received deacon's orders, 
in the thirtieth those of the priesthood, both by the ministry 
of the most reverend bishop John and by order of Abbot 
Ceolfrid. From which time of my becoming a priest till the 
fifty-ninth year of my age I have made it my business, for 
the use of me and mine, to make brief notes on Holy Scrip- 
ture from the writings of venerable fathers, or even to add 
something to their interpretations in accordance with their 
views, viz. : 

" On the beginning of Genesis to the birth of Isaac, and 
the choosing of Israel and rejection of Ishmael, three books. 

" Of the tabernacle and its vessels, and the vestments of 
the priests, three books. 

" Also on the first part of Samuel, that is, to the death of 
Saul, four books. 

" Of the building of the temple, four books of allegorical 
exposition, like the rest." 

And so on. Altogether, he enumerates no less 
than thirty-nine different subjects or headings, on 



2SdJc. 23 

each of which he had written at least one book, but 
more commonly two or three, and sometimes six or 
seven. Nor were the subjects entirely scriptural ; 
on the contrary, they embraced all the learning and 
all the knowledge of the times. He had written a 
book of letters in which one epistle was devoted to 
an explanation of leap year and the equinox 
according to Anatolius. He had written lives of 
saints, a special life of St. Cuthbert, a history of 
the abbots of his own monastery, a book of hymns, 
a book of epigrams, a book of orthography, and a 
book of poetry. A treatise that he wrote " On the 
Nature of Things " became a text-book of science to 
succeeding generations, in which, to use the words 
of Professor Morley, he " condensed the knowledge 
of his day, as modified by religion, on the subject 
of the World and its Creation, the elements, the 
firmament and heavens, the five circles of the 
world (northern, solstitial, equinoctial, brumal, and 
austral), the four quarters of the heavens, the stars, 
the course and order of the planets, their apses, 
their changes of colour, the zodiac and its signs, 
the milky way, the sun, the moon, their courses and 
eclipses, comets, air, winds, thunder and lightning, 
the rainbow, clouds, showers, hail, snow, signs of 
the weather, pestilence, fresh and salt water, tides, 
the sea, the Red Sea, the Nile, the position of the 
Earth, its form of a globe, its circle and dial 
shadows, its movement, volcanic ^Etna, and the 
great geographical divisions of the Earth." 

His love of study was unbounded. It appears 



24 lEarlg <£f)toviidtv$ of fsnglanU. 

from his book on poetry and other evidences that 
he was familiar with Greek, and it is believed that 
he knew something even of Hebrew. But nowhere 
does his devotion to literature appear more strongly 
than in the well-known account of his death 
written by his pupil Cuthbert to a friend, which, 
though it has been so often quoted by other writers 
we cannot but transcribe and lay before the reader 
in this place : — 

"To his fellow reader Cuthwin, beloved in Christ, Cuthbert 
his schoolfellow, health for ever in the Lord. I have received 
with much pleasure the small present which you sent me, 
and with much satisfaction read the letters of your devout 
erudition ; wherein I found what I very much desired, that 
masses and holy prayers are diligently celebrated by you for 
our father and master, Bede, whom God loved. I am, there- 
fore, all the better pleased, for the love of him (according to 
my capacity), in a few words to relate in what manner he 
departed this world, as I understand that you also desire and 
ask the same. He was much troubled with shortness of 
breath, yet without pain, before the day of our Lord's Resur- 
rection, that is, for nearly a fortnight ; and thus he after- 
wards passed his life, cheerful and rejoicing, giving thanks to 
Almighty God every day and night, nay, every hour, till the 
day our Lord's Ascension, that is, the seventh before the 
kalends of June [26th of May], and daily read lessons to u£ 
his disciples, and whatever remained of the day he spent iu 
singing psalms. He also passed all the night awake, in jov 
and thanksgiving, except so far as a very slight slumber pre- 
vented it ; but he no sooner awoke than he presently repeated 
his wonted exercises, and ceased not to give thanks to God 
with uplifted hands. 

" O truly happy man ! He chanted the sentence of St. 
Paul the Apostle, ' It is dreadful to fall into the hands of the 
living God,' and much more out of Holy Writ ; wherein also 



3Beati) of 33ctie. 



he admonished us to think of our last hour, and to shake oft 
the sleep of the soul ; and being learned in our poetry, he 
said some things also in our tongue, for he said, putting the 
same into English, 
" ' For tham neod fere JEr his heonen-gange 

Nenig wyrtheth Hwet his gaste 

Thances snottra Godes oththe yveles 

Thonne him thearf sy .<Efter deathe heonen 
To gehiggene Demed wurthe.' 

which means this : 

" ' No man is wiser than is requisite, before the necessary 
departure ; that is, to consider, before the soul departs hence, 
what good or evil it hath done, and how it is to be judged 
after its departure.' 

" He also sang antiphons according to our custom and his 
own, one of which is, ' O King of glory, Lord of all power, 
who, triumphing this day, didst ascend above all the heavens ; 
do not leave us orphans,* but send down upon us the spirit 
of truth which was promised by the Father. Hallelujah ! 't 
And when he came to that word, ' do not leave us orphans,' 
he burst into tears and wept much, and an hour after he 
began to repeat what he had commenced, and we, hearing it, 
mourned with him. By turns we read, and by turns we wept, 
nay, we wept always while we read. In such joy we passed 
the period of fifty days (between Easter and Whit-Sunday), 
till the aforesaid day ; and he rejoiced much and gave God 
thanks because he had been thought worthy to be so weak- 
ened. He often repeated 'that God scourgeth every son 
whom He receiveth,' and much more out of Holy Scripture ; 
as also this sentence from St. Ambrose, ' I have not lived so 
as to be ashamed to live among you ; nor do I fear to die, 
because we have a gracious God.' During these days he 

* See St. John xiv. 18. The word translated "comfortless" 
in our version is in the Greek bptyavovs. 

t This is the antiphon for vespers on Ascension Day in the 
Sarum breviary, and is now used with some modification in our 
Church as the collect for the Sunday after. 



26 SEarlg ©ijronfckrs of lEnglantr. 

laboured to compose two works well worthy to be remem- 
bered, besides the lessons we had from him, and singing of 
Psalms ; viz., he translated the Gospel of St. John into our 
own tongue for the benefit of the church ; and some collec- 
tions out of the book of Notes of Bishop Isidorus, saying, ' I 
will not have my pupils read a falsehood, nor labour therein 
without profit after my death.' When the Tuesday before 
the Ascension of our Lord came, he began to suffer still 
more in his breath, and a small swelling appeared in his feet ; 
but he passed all that day and dictated cheerfully, and now 
and then, among other things, said, ' Go on quickly, I know 
not how long I shall hold out, and whether my Maker will 
not soon take me away.' But to us he seemed very well to 
know the time of his departure ; and so he spent the night 
awake, in thanksgiving. 

And when the morning appeared, that is Wednesday, 
he ordered us to write with all speed what he had begun ; 
and this done, we walked in procession with the relics 
of the saints till the third hour as the custom of that day 
was. There was one of us, however, with him, who said to 
him, ' Most dear master, there is still one chapter wanting ; 
do you think it troublesome to be asked any more ques- 
tions?' He answered, 'It is no trouble. Take your pen, 
and dip it and write fast' Which he did. But at the ninth 
hour he said to me, ' I have some little articles of value in 
my chest, such as pepper, napkins, and incense ; run quickly, 
and bring the priests of our monastery to me, that I may 
distribute among them the gifts which God has bestowed on 
me. The rich in this world are bent on giving gold and 
silver, and other precious things. But I, with much charity 
and joy, will give my brothers that which God has given to 
me.' He spoke to every one of them, admonishing and en- 
treating them that they would carefully say masses and 
prayers for him, which they readily promised ; but they all 
mourned and wept, especially because he said that they 
should no more see his face in this world. They rejoiced, 
however, because he said, ' The time is come that I shall 



Wt&fy at 2foue. 



return to Him who formed me out of nothing : I have lived 
long ; my merciful Judge well foresaw my life for me ; the 
time of my dissolution draws nigh ; for I desire to die and to 
be with Christ.' Having said much more, he passed the day 
joyfully till the evening ; and the boy above mentioned, said : 
' Dear master, there is yet one sentence not written.' He 
answered, ' Write quickly.' Soon after, the boy said, ' The 
sentence is now written.' He replied, ' It is well, you have 
said the truth. It is ended. Receive my head into your 
hands, for it is a great satisfaction to me to sit opposite my 
holy place in which I was wont to pray, that I may also 
sitting call upon my Father.' And thus on the pavement of 
his little cell, singing ' Glory be to the Father, and to the 
Son, and to the Holy Ghost,' when he had named the Holy 
Ghost, he breathed his last, and so departed to the heavenly 
kingdom. All who were present at the death of the blessed 
father said they had never seen any other person expire with 
so much devotion, and in so tranquil a frame of mind. For 
as you have heard, so long as the soul animated his body, he 
never ceased to give thanks to the true and living God, with 
expanded hands, exclaiming, ' Glory be to the Father, and 
to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost!' with other spiritual 
ejaculations. But know this, dearest brother, that I could 
say much concerning him, if my want of learning did not 
cut short my discourse. Nevertheless, by the grace of God I 
purpose shortly to write more concerning him, particularly of 
those things which I saw with my own eyes, and heard with 
my own ears." 

It appears from this letter that Bede died on 
Ascension Day, which in that particular year fell 
on the 26th May. The date must therefore have 
been in the year of our Lord 735 ; and as the 
Ecclesiastical History terminates in the year 731, 
it is clear that the author did not long survive the 



completion of his greatest work. 



2 3 lEarlp ©Jjtomckrg of lEnglant). 

From the first the Ecclesiastical History of Bede 
has always been regarded as a work of the highest 
interest. After the lapse of several centuries it was 
still looked upon as the model of what a history 
ought to be, and after which other histories ought 
to be written. It was translated by the great king 
Alfred into the vernacular English of his own day, 
and it has been frequently translated since. No 
one, indeed, can be indifferent to such a remarkable 
record of the dawn of Christian civilization in this 
country, written so near the time itself by one of 
the most vigorous and many-sided intellects that 
England ever produced. Much of the information 
contained in it seems to have been derived from 
the memory of persons living in Bede's own day. 
A good deal more was supplied to him by corre- 
spondents at London and at Canterbury. Some 
part also is believed to have been founded on 
native annals not now extant. It is evident that 
the author sought eagerly for information wherever 
it was to be found. 

Nor can it be considered a reflection upon his 
judgment, considering the slender means at his 
disposal for the verification of many things, that 
he has filled a considerable portion of the work 
with miraculous stories which the modern reader 
will at once dismiss as fabulous. It was the uni- 
versal belief in those days that the power of work- 
ing miracles, communicated by our Lord to His 
apostles in the first instance, had never ceased to 
be exercised by holy men in the Church, and the 



J&tracfcss in 3fa&e'g P?tetorg, 29 

conviction that such things were possible, predis- 
posed the mind to believe in them as facts. The 
acknowledged rarity of the occurrences at the same 
time prevented minute inquiry; for the power of 
working miracles was esteemed an attribute of 
peculiar saintliness, and if the immediate wit- 
nesses were mistaken in what they saw, or about 
the instrumentality through which it was effected, 
there was no means by which the ablest writer 
living at a distance, even if contemporary with the 
facts, could easily correct their mistakes. But in 
Bede's history it will be noted that marvels of this 
sort abound most in reference to a period long 
before his own day, and where it is otherwise there 
is generally not much difficulty in explaining the 
phenomenon in accordance with natural laws. 

We must not, therefore, be surprised that even a 
writer of such strong intelligence should tell us that 
Germanus stilled a tempest in the channel while 
going over to Britain to quell the Pelagian heresy ; 
that he gave eyesight to a blind girl, and performed 
a number of other miracles not recorded ; that a 
fire at Canterbury, against which all human efforts 
were unavailing, was quenched by the prayers of 
the infirm and gouty Mellitus, who having ordered 
himself to be carried to the place where it was 
most vehement, caused the wind immediately to 
change. Of stories like these there is great abun- 
dance in Bede's history ; but all that they can be 
justly considered to prove is that his intense and 
vehement love of knowledge went far beyond the 



30 lEarig ©Jjroniclerg of lEnglanti. 

means at his disposal for testing the accuracy of 
his information. 

We pass over an interval of nearly two hundred 
years before we come to another historian of 
real graphic power. Nor have we even then a 
great historian, much less a man of anything like 
Bede's comprehensiveness and universality of mind. 
He is, in fact, not an historian at all, but only a 
biographer ; his work is little more than a fragment, 
of which a very small portion is original, and the 
interest of it is mainly due to the genuine great- 
ness of the man whom he describes to us. Never- 
theless, Asser's Life of Alfred is by no means 
contemptible, even as a literary composition ; and 
if it is seldom studied in the original, some part of 
its contents is known to all and related in other 
language to children in the nursery at this day. 

Although the place of his birth is nowhere 
stated, there is little doubt that Asser was a 
Welshman. Of his education we know from him- 
self that he was brought up in the monastery of 
St. David's, where he also received the tonsure and 
was ordained a priest. It is the opinion of Sir 
Thomas Hardy that he ultimately became head 
of that house, if not bishop of the see ; for he 
speaks of injustice done both to the see and to 
the monastery by King Hemeyd of South Wales,- 
and complains particularly of the expulsion of the 
prelates, including himself and his kinsman Arch- 
bishop Novis. It was this circumstance that made 
him to some extent less regardful of local ties, and 



toer'* &tfe of SKw&. 31 

caused him to yield the more easily to the per- 
suasions of Alfred to spend some time in his king- 
dom ; for he felt that by cultivating the frendship 
of such a powerful prince, his own position, even in 
Wales, would be materially strengthened. He is, 
in fact, mentioned by later writers as successor to 
Novis in the bishopric of St. David's ; and he him- 
self states that he had possessions and jurisdiction 
both westward and northward of the river Severn. 
King Alfred, however, set a high value on his 
friendship, and gave him the bishopric of Exeter, 
and probably also that of Shirburn, the see of which 
was in after times transferred to Salisbury, besides 
some other promotions. Asser himself does not 
mention both these bishoprics, but only that of 
Exeter, and the monasteries of Amesbury and 
Banwell, as having been given him by King Alfred ; 
but as Asser's Life of Alfred is only a fragment 
composed many years before the king's death, and 
never completed by its author, it is quite possible 
that he may have received Shirburn from the same 
patron as his other English preferments. 

Asser, however, wrote as a Welshman, and for 
the use of Welshmen. The fact is apparent from 
his speaking of the English as " Saxons," and 
calling their country " Saxony," besides translating 
English local names by Celtic ones ; as, for example, 
Selwood, which he not only renders into Latin as 
Silva Magna, but into British or Welsh as Coit- 
mawr. It is remarkable, and to my mind not very 
consistent with those theories held by some of the 



$2 lEarlg ©frrontcfcrg of lEnglanfc. 

extermination of the original British inhabitants by 
the Saxons, that a considerable number of places 
throughout England, though they had by this time 
received Saxon names from the most recent con- 
querors of the island, were still known to the 
ancient British races by the names in use before 
the conquest. Just as at this day, in parts of Ire- 
land and Scotland which a few generations ago 
were far removed from intercourse with the English- 
speaking race, a village, or a mountain, is known to 
the world in general by an English name, but to the 
original inhabitants by a Celtic one ; so it was in 
the days of Asser in districts absolutely under the 
dominion of the Saxon. Eaxanceastre, or Exeter, 
we are told, was called in British Cairwisc, Ciren- 
cester was called Cairceri, Snotingaham(or Notting- 
ham) was called Tigguocobauc, or the House of 
Caves, Thornsasta (or Dorset) was called Durngueis. 
Even on the east coast of England the very island 
on which the Saxon invaders first set foot, although 
it had received from them the name which it still 
retains of Thanet, was known to some in the days 
of King Alfred by its old British name of Ruim. 

For the earlier part of his work Asser appears to 
have availed himself of the annals known as the 
Saxon Chronicle, which he simply translated into 
Latin with here and there a word of comment or 
explanation. He begins, however, from the year 
849, the date of Alfred's" birth, which he uses 
throughout as an era ; and wherever, in translating 
from the Chronicle, he has to mention the year 



teer'ss 3Ltfe of &lfret>. 33 

of our Lord, he is always careful to add " which 
was the third after the birth of King Alfred," 
or, which was the twelfth, thirty-ninth, or whatever 
it might be, of King Alfred's life. From the year 
849 to 887 the work is in this way mainly derived 
from the Chronicle, and relates even more to the 
general history of the kingdom than to the life of 
Alfred himself. But it is of course to the original 
portion, containing those personal notices of the 
king from which almost all our knowledge of him 
is derived, that the work owes nearly all its value. 

Here, however, as in the case of Gildas, the 
critics will not let us rest. How much of Asser is 
original ? Or how much of the received work is 
really authentic ? There is no doubt, unfortunately, 
that it has been much interpolated ; and the one 
bold sceptic who impugns the authenticity of 
Gildas ventures to insinuate here too that the whole 
treatise is the production of a later age. This 
theory, however, has not found general acceptance, 
and we only mention it to show the reader how our 
path is beset with difficulties. The question as to 
the extent of the interpolations is more serious, for, 
unfortunately, no ancient manuscripts of Asser now 
remain. One ancient copy which appears to have 
been used by Archbishop Parker, Asser's first 
editor, perished in the disastrous fire which con- 
sumed a portion of the Cottonian library in 173 1 ; 
and it is perfectly certain that even Archbishop 
Parker did not print the text exactly as it stood in 
this manuscript. But the great antiquary, Camden, 

ENG. D 



34 lEarlg <&\)XQmdex$ of lEnglant). 

who printed a second edition of this treatise, took still 
further liberties, and actually inserted, as if it were 
part of Asser's work, a passage derived from a 
totally different source, in which King Alfred is 
absurdly represented as settling disputes at the 
University of Oxford. Great scholars even in the 
days of James I. could believe that the antiquity 
of that venerable seat of learning actually reached 
back to the days of King Alfred. 

It is difficult to excuse such editing as this ; for, 
whatever may be said to palliate the credulity 
which in that age was disposed to accept the fact 
related, there could be no justification of the course 
Camden pursued in introducing foreign matter into 
Asser's narrative. Archbishop Parker, it is true, 
had done the same ; but the passages which he 
introduced were from a work which he believed to 
be by the same author, so that it may be said they 
were inserted in good faith, though by no means 
with good judgment. The Archbishop, in fact, 
confounded together two totally different works, 
which were both in that day attributed to Asser, 
and supplied from a later treatise commonly called 
Asser's Annals, a good deal of matter that he 
found omitted in the Life of Alfred. Now, the 
so-called Asser's Annals borrow a good deal of 
their contents, either from the Life of Alfred, or 
from the corresponding parts of the Saxon 
Chronicle ; and where they contain more it might 
very well have appeared that the manuscript of the 
Life of Alfred was defective. But instead of being 



&**«'* Stfe of &lfret). 35 

the real work of Asser it can be shown conclusively 
that the Annals were written at least fourscore years 
after Asser's death, and in all probability they are 
a good deal later. 

Now, the natural result of all this tampering with 
Asser's text and the loss of the one ancient manu- 
script which existed in the beginning of the last cen- 
tury, is that we should be in considerable doubt as to 
what Asser really said, and whether any part of the 
text could really be relied on. And so, in fact, we 
should have been, but that in 1722, just before the 
fire in the Cottonian Library, an edition of Asser 
was published by an editor named Wise, in which the 
work was collated throughout with ail the manu- 
scripts then known to exist. From this collation 
we can now declare with certainty how much of the 
received text was contained in the one only manu- 
script which ought to have been regarded as of much 
authority ; and even this manuscript, it would seem, 
did not contain the text of Asser absolutely pure 
and unadulterated. But the revelations made by 
this examination are not a little instructive. We 
shall give one example which should certainly 
interest other people than bookworms. 

The old familiar story of Alfred allowing the 
cakes to burn in a cowherd's cottage has been 
generally related by historians on the authority of 
Asser's Life of Alfred. On examination it turns 
out that this is one of the interpolations of a later 
date. This is not, we may remark, as much as to 
say that the incident is entirely apocryphal ; for 



3 6 3Earlg ©IjrontckriS of lEnglanD. 

a story preserved for some time by tradition may 
be perfectly true, and in this case we pronounce no 
opinion one way or other. But the fact is that it 
formed no part whatever of Asser's work, but was 
tagged on by the author of the so-called Annals of 
Asser to a passage in the Life derived from the 
Saxon Chronicle. To exhibit the whole process of 
manufacture, we will first give the words of the 
Saxon Chronicle: — 

" Anno 878. This year, during mid-winter, the army [of the 
Danes] stole away to Chippenham, and overran the land of 
the West Saxons, and sat down there ; and many of the 
people they drove beyond sea, and of the remainder the 
greater part they subdued and forced to obey them, except 
King Alfred ; and he, with a small band, with difficulty 
retreated to the woods and to the fortresses of the moors." 

This passage Asser translated, it may be a little 
paraphrastically ; but even in the translation as it 
now stands, we find an additional clause referring 
to a life of St. Neot which could not have been part 
of the original text, but was probably embodied in 
it many years after Asser's death. So that the 
latter part of the above passage reads as follows in 
the Life : — 

'-' At the same time, the above-named King Alfred, with a 
few of his nobles and certain soldiers and vassals, used to 
lead an unquiet life in great tribulation among the woodlands 
and marshy districts of Somerset; for he had nothing to live 
upon except what he could take by frequent forays, either 
secretly or openly, from the Pagans, 01 even from the 
Christians who had submitted to the Pagan rule ; and as we 
read in the Life of St. Neot he [once took refuge] with one of 
his cowherds." 



%Lmt'$ Me of &lfteD. 37 

Here we have the first allusion to the cowherd, 
but still there is nothing said about the burning of 
the cakes ; nor did the one ancient manuscript con- 
tain the story when it was unfortunately burned 
in the Cottonian fire. But even in the earliest 
edition of the work, which was printed by Parker 
in 1574, the story occurs as an addition to the 
preceding paragraph, and is related as follows. 
We adopt the translation of Dr. Giles, who has 
turned a Latin distich in the original in a very 
spirited manner into verse in the Somersetshire 
dialect : — 

" But it happened on a certain day that the countrywoman, 
wife of the cowherd, was preparing some loaves to bake, and 
the king, sitting at the hearth, made ready his bow and 
arrows and other warlike instruments. The unlucky woman 
espying the cakes burning at the fire, ran up to remove them, 
and rebuking the brave king, exclaimed — 
' Ca'sn thee mind the ke-aks, man, and doossen zee 'em burn ? 
I'm boun' thee's eat 'em vast enough, az zoon az 'tiz the 
turn.' 
The blundering woman little thought that it was King Alfred, 
who had fought so many battles against the Pagans, and 
gained so many victories over them." 

That this was a distinct addition to the original 
text is shown by the fact that it was not contained 
in the old Cottonian manuscript, but only in the 
so-called Asser's Annals. And the reader will 
observe that it also bears internal evidence of being 
an interpolation in the fact that it is positively 
inconsistent with what goes before. For the Lift 
itself, following the authority of a Life of St. Neot, 



38 Icatly ©Svonidcrg of langlatxtj. 

says the king took shelter with one of his own cow- 
herds {apud quendam snum vaccarium), evidently a 
trusty dependent who knew him personally ; while 
the anecdote taken out of the Annals states that 
the cowherd's wife did not know who her guest was. 
It is impossible, surely, that a writer who intended 
to tell such a story would previously have used the 
expression " apud quendam suum vaccarium." 

Indeed, the inconsistency is even more marked 
if we look at the pseudo Annals of Asser them- 
selves ; for it will be seen that in the second last 
extract, which is taken from the Life of Alfred, we 
have been obliged to bracket in three words — 
"once took refuge" — to complete the sense and 
make good grammar. This may have been a mere 
accidental omission in the manuscript ; for even in 
the Latin it cannot be said that the absence of a 
verb in the sentence is consistent with good com- 
position. But if we go to the pseudo Asser, from 
which the writer was transcribing, we find the verb 
supplied, and along with it an adverb, which 
together make the sense very much stronger than 
that of the three words we have bracketed. For the 
statement there is, not that Alfred merely " once 
took refuge," but that he " lay hid for a long time " 
(din latebat) at the house of this cowherd ; so that 
the idea that the cowherd's wife — his own dependent 
— did not know who he was, becomes far more 
improbable. At all events, if the writer of the 
Annals had entertained this idea, he would pro- 
bably have expressed it that his narrative might 
not seem to suggest the contrary. 



<gLmx'$ M« of gUfreU. 39 

It is true, these internal indications of different 
authorship could hardly have been regarded if we 
had not other evidence ; indeed, as it is, I am not 
aware that they have been pointed out before now ; 
but they are worth observing. 

There is, however, a further means of testing the 
accuracy of Asser's text which we have not yet 
mentioned. Although there is now no ancient 
manuscript of the Life of Alfred to which we can 
appeal, a great part of it was transcribed word 
for word by Florence of Worcester in the twelfth 
century, and incorporated with other materials in 
his chronicle. And Florence of Worcester in this 
place not only omits altogether the story of the 
cakes, but says nothing even of the king taking 
refuge with a cowherd, and makes no allusion 
whatever to the Life of St. Neot, from which that 
statement is derived. Now, as we have shown 
already that the allusion to the Life of St. Neot 
could not have been a part of the original work, it 
is clear that in this particular passage the text of 
Asser exists in a less corrupt state in Florence of 
Worcester than it does, or even than it did in the 
beginning of the last century, in any manuscript 
of the Life of Alfred itself. 

Taking, this incident, therefore, as something 
undoubtedly incorporated with the biography of 
Alfred at a later period, it shows at least how 
tradition loved to dwell upon his memory and to 
preserve anecdotes of him which, even if they were 
to some extent apocryphal, were still, we may 



4° lEaiclg ©^romckrg of lEnglant). 

believe, highly characteristic of the man and of the 
days in which he lived. Other anecdotes, scarcely 
less graphic and interesting, would appear to be 
part of Asser's genuine work ; and yet in some 
cases they are rather difficult to harmonise, even 
with the facts preserved by Asser himself. The 
following, for instance, so far as external testimony 
goes, would seem to be a genuine part of the story 
written by the bishop who was Alfred's contem- 
porary. After relating that although he showed 
himself precocious from his cradle, yet "by the 
unworthy neglect of his parents and nurses," the 
boy remained illiterate till he was twelve years old 
or more ; it is added : — ■ 

" On a certain day, therefore, his mother was showing him 
and his brother a Saxon book of poetry, which she held in 
her hands, and said, e Whichever of you shall the soonest 
learn this volume, shall have it for his own.' Stimulated by 
these words, or rather by the Divine inspiration, and allured 
by the beautifully illuminated letter at the beginning of the 
volume, he spoke before all his brothers, who, though his 
seniors in age, were not so in grace, and answered : ' Will you 
really give that book to one of us, that is to say, to him who 
can first understand and repeat it to you ? ' At this his 
mother smiled with satisfaction, and confirmed what she had 
before said. Upon which the boy took the book out of her 
hand, and went to his master to read it, and in due time 
brought it to his mother and recited." 

This is an anecdote which, it must be universally 
felt, one would not like to lose. But just in pro- 
portion to that feeling must be the wish to under- 
stand and appreciate it. From what goes before 



gLmt't 3Ltfe of &lfrrt>. 41 

we should naturally presume that this occurrence 
took place when he was about twelve years old ; 
more especially as there is at the beginning a 
"therefore," {ergo) which seems to connect it with 
preceding statements. But Alfred's mother, As- 
burgha, must have died soon after the year 853, in 
which, as the biography itself tells us, the child 
was sent by his father to Rome ; and at that date 
he could have been little more than four years old. 
Some are therefore led to the belief that the 
"mother" referred to was his stepmother, Judith, 
daughter of Charles the Bald, king of the Franks ; 
but apart from the improbability of the word mater 
being used instead of noverca, it is suggested as 
very unlikely that this foreign princess, who was 
married before she was thirteen, would have been 
at much pains to teach Saxon poetry to grown-up 
stepsons, some of whom were probably older than 
herself. The most reasonable view seems to be 
that Alfred's real mother was intended. The 
passage in the midst of which the anecdote occurs 
is a digression in which the author takes leave for 
a time of the political history derived from the 
Saxon Chronicle, in order to tell, as he himself 
says, all that had come to his knowledge touching 
the great king's infancy and boyhood. It must 
also be understood that, although the Latin of the 
above extract might be so construed, this story 
does not refer to Alfred's learning to read ; for 
that is recorded later, and the date at which he 
acquired the art is stated to have been the thirty- 



42 lEarln <&§tomdtx$ of lEttglantJ. 

ninth year of his age. The anecdote is only related 
as an early manifestation of that intelligence and 
love of letters of which he gave still more striking 
evidence in his manhood as king of the West 
Saxons and of England. 

Farther on in the narrative it is related how in 
those days he invited from Mercia four eminent 
divines and scholars : Werefrith, bishop of Wor- 
cester, who at his command translated the 
Dialogues of Pope Gregory and his disciple Peter 
into English ; Plegmund, whom he made arch- 
bishop of Canterbury ; Ethelstan and Werewulf 
whom he made his priests and chaplains. Not 
content with this, he sent messengers beyond sea 
to Gaul and invited over Grimbald, " priest and 
monk, a venerable man and good singer, adorned 
with every kind of ecclesiastical discipline and 
good morals, and most learned in Holy Scripture ; " 
also John, another priest and monk, who is de- 
scribed as a man of great energy and learning, 
and skilled in various arts. Such men he en- 
riched and promoted to great honour. So also 
he induced the author, bishop Asser himself, 
to make his abode in his kingdom instead of 
Wales. 

" In these times I also, at the king's invitation, came into 
Saxony out of the furthest coasts of Western Britain ; and 
when I had proposed to go to him through many intervening 
provinces, I arrived in the country of the Saxons, who live 
on the right hand, which in Saxon is called Sussex, under the 
guidance of some of that nation ; and there I first saw him 



tect'0 &[(* of SUfat). 43 

in the royal vill, which is called Dene.* He received mc 
with kindness, and among other familiar conversation, he 
asked me eagerly to devote myself to his service, and become 
his friend ; to leave everything which I possessed on the left, 
or western, bank of the Severn, and he promised he would 
give more than an equivalent for it in his own dominions. 
I replied that I could not incautiously and rashly promise 
such things ; for it seemed to me unjust that I should leave 
those sacred places in which I had been bred, educated, and 
crowned,+ and at last ordained, for the sake of any earthly 
honour and power, unless by compulsion. Upon this he said, 
' If you cannot accede to this, at least let me have your ser- 
vice in part. Spend six months of the year with me here, 
and the other six in Britain. 5 To this I replied, ' I could not 
even promise that, easily or hastily, without the advice of my 
friends.' At length, however, when I perceived that he was 
anxious for my services, though I knew not why, I promised 
him that, if my life was spared, I would return to him after 
six months, with such a reply as should be agreeable to him, 
as well as advantageous to me and mine. With this answer 
he was satisfied, and when I had given him a pledge to return 
at the appointed time, on the fourth day we left him and 
returned on horseback towards our own country. 

" After our departure a violent fever seized me in the city 
of Winchester, where I lay for twelve months and one week, 
night and day without hope of recovery. At the appointed 
time, therefore, I could not fulfil my promise of visiting him, 
and he sent messages to hasten my journey, and to inquire 
the cause of my delay. As I was unable to ride to him, 
1 sent a second message to tell him the cause of my delay, 
and assure him that, if I recovered from my infirmity, I 

* East and West Dean are two villages near Chichester. There 
are also two villages so named near Eastbourne, one of which, it 
has been thought, may be the place in question. 

"J" This expression alludes to the tonsure which was undergone by 
those who became clerks. The crown of the head was shaved, 
leaving a circle of hair round it. 



44 lEarlg @5ronicla# of lEnglant). 

would fulfil what I had promised. My complaint left me 
and by the advice and consent of all my friends, for the 
benefit of that holy place, and of all who dwelt therein, I did 
as I had promised to the king, and devoted myself to his 
service, on the condition that I should remain with him six 
months in every year, either continuously, if I could spend 
six months with him at once, or alternately, three months in 
Britain, and three in Saxony." 

Afterwards the author tells us how he was in- 
duced by the king's earnest solicitation to stay with 
him eight months at the royal vill of Leonaford — 

" During which I read to him whatever books he liked, and 
such as he had at hand ; for this is his most usual custom, 
both night and day, 'amid his many other occupations of 
mind and body, either himself to read books, or to listen 
whilst others read them." 

The process by which he learned to read himself 
may be described a little more briefly than in the 
very words of his biographer. One day, as the 
king and Asser were sitting together talking on 
various subjects, the latter read to him a quotation 
out of a certain book, with which Alfred was so 
greatly pleased, that he desired him to write it 
down in a book which he took out of his bosom, 
containing the daily services, psalms, and prayers, 
that he had been accustomed to recite in his youth. 
The bishop gave thanks inwardly to God, who had 
implanted such a love of wisdom in the king's 
heart, but could find no vacant space in the book 
to write the quotation in. He therefore asked if 
the king would like him to write the quotation on 
some leaf apart, as it was possible that other say- 



teer'ii %iiz of QLlixel}, 45 

ings might occur to him hereafter which he would 
like preserved in the same way. To this the king 
willingly assented. Asser accordingly wrote the 
quotation on a clean sheet, and, as he anticipated, 
was desired to follow it up by three other quotations 
that very day, so that the sheet soon became quite 
full. " Thus," says his biographer, " like a most 
industrious bee, he flew here and there, asking 
questions as he went, until he had eagerly and un- 
ceasingly collected many various flowers of Divine 
Scriptures, with which he thickly stored the cells of 
his mind." From the time that the first quotation 
was copied he was at once eager to read, to translate 
it into Saxon, and to teach it to others. He began 
to study selections from the sacred writings, and to 
put a number of them together in a book which he 
called his Enchiridion, or Manual, because he con- 
stantly kept it in hand, day and night. 

Thus it was that the great king became a scholar. 
It may be doubted whether more than two or three 
of the kings of England after him, if even so many, 
were able to read or write during the next five 
hundred years or more. But Alfred not only set 
himself to learn those accomplishments, but he 
became an author, and translated a number of 
valuable works from the Latin into his native 
Anglo-Saxon, among others, as we have already 
mentioned, the Ecclesiastical History of Bede. 

His devoutness in dividing his revenues equally 
between the service of God and secular uses, and 
the methodical manner in which each half was 



46 iEfltlg Chroniclers of lisnglanti. 

divided again, and apportioned to more specific 
objects, are related by Asser with admiration. But 
still more interesting is the mode in which he 
divided his time. The stoiy, indeed, is very well 
known, but may as well be related here from the 
original authority : — 

" He promised, as far as his infirmity and his means would 
allow, to give up to God the half of his services, bodily and 
mental, by night and by day, voluntarily and with all his 
might ; but inasmuch as he could not equally distinguish the 
lengths of the hours by night, on account of the darkness, 
and ofttimes of the day, on account of the storms and clouds, 
he began to consider by what means, and without any diffi- 
culty, relying on the mercy of God, he might discharge the 
promised tenor of his vow until his death. After long re- 
flection on these things, he at length, by a useful and shrewd 
invention, commanded his chaplains to supply wax in a suffi- 
cient quantity, and he caused it to be weighed in such a 
manner that when there was so much of it in the scales as 
would equal the weight of seventy-two pence, he caused the 
chaplains to make six candles thereof, each of equal length, 
so that each candle might have twelve divisions marked 
longitudinally upon it. By this plan, therefore, those six 
candles burned for twenty-four hours — a night and a day — 
without fail, before the sacred relics of many of God's elect, 
which always accompanied him wherever he went ; but some- 
times, when they would not continue burning a whole day 
and night till the same hour that they were lighted the pre- 
ceding evening, from the violence of the wind, which blew 
day and night v/ithout intermission through the doors and 
windows of the churches, the fissures of the divisions, the 
plankings, or the wall, or the thin canvas of the tents, they 
then unavoidably burned out, and finished their course before 
tne appointed time. The king, therefore, considered by what 
means he might shut out the wind ; and so, by a useful and 



SftStt'js 2ife of flLlfxeb 47 

cunning invention, he ordered a lantern to be beautifully con- 
structed of wood and white oxhorn, which, when skilfully 
planed till it is thin, is no less transparent than a vessel of 
glass. This lantern, therefore, was wonderfully made of wood 
and horn, as we before said, and by night a candle was put 
into it, which shone as brightly without as within, and was 
not extinguished by the wind ; for the opening of the lantern 
was also closed up, according to the king's command, by a 
door made of horn. By this contrivance, then, six candles, 
lighted in succession, lasted four and twenty hours, neither 
more nor less, and when these were extinguished, others were 
lighted." 

Here we must close our notice of Asser, and of 
historians prior to the Norman Conquest. It will 
be observed that we have laid before the reader 
three remarkable writers, each characteristic of his 
time — writers of very unequal greatness, it is true, 
but all alike necessary to be studied in connection 
with their respective eras. Even in their very 
nationality and surroundings they mark the state 
of civilization each had before him, and who were 
the favoured people of the day. The first is a 
Briton, the second a northern Englishman, the 
third a Briton again, but living at the court of a 
southern Englishman, the first king of a united 
England. In the first, we have a native writer 
mourning over the destruction of his country, the 
decay of Christianity, and the advance made by 
a barbarous pagan enemy, who lay between his 
countrymen and the civilization of Europe. In the 
second, we find a descendant of the invaders, who 
by this time have become Christian, telling the 



48 3Eatig ©ftrcmtcUrg ot ISnglanD. 

glad story of the conversion of his ancestors, and 
the spread of true religion among^ahis people. In 
the time of the third writer, Britons and Englishmen 
have become friends, and unite in Christian sym- 
pathy against a new pagan invader — the Dane. 
Such was the conflict of races in our island, and 
such the struggle Christianity and civilization had 
to pass through before the Norman Conquest. 






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CHAPTER II. 

RECORDS OF THE MONKS. 

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle — Influence of the Norman Conquest — 
Chronicle of Battle Abbey — How monasteries fostered literature 
and civilization — Florence of Worcester — Eadmer — His account 
of St. Anselm — William of Malmesbury — Extracts touching the 
effect of the Conquest — The First Crusade — Robert of Normandy 
and Henry I. — The Gesta Stephani — Early report of a debate in 
the king's council — Extract touching Bristol and Bath — The 
Empress Maud — Henry of Huntingdon — Ordericus Vitalis. 

IT -must be owned that the art of writing history- 
languished after the days of Bede. For about 
four centuries England scarcely produced any one 
deserving the name of a historian. Yet during 
that very period one remarkable record was pre- 
served in the vernacular language, of all the im- 
portant events from year to year ; and though for 
the most part only a mere register of facts, it is 
impossible to pass over in silence such a great 
literary monument as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 
Originated, as some believe, by King Alfred, and 
certainly existing in his day, as indeed we have 
ENG. E 



5<o lEarlg <&f)tomtht$ of lEnglanD, 

had occasion to see already,* it was continued 
from age to age by various hands till after the 
death of Stephen. The mere language of the 
different manuscripts affords an interesting study 
to the philologist, the variations of the dialect in 
different parts bearing witness to different degrees 
of antiquity in the composition, and the existence 
of concurrent texts in several places show that it 
was transcribed and added to by different and 
independent writers. The existing manuscripts 
also come to an end at very different dates, and 
special circumstances contained in particular texts 
seem occasionally to indicate the monastery in 
which a particular edition was composed. 

Beginning with a description of the island of 
Britain, and the races by whom it was originally in- 
habited, which is simply an abridgment of Bede's 
introductory chapter, followed by a brief notice of 
the conquest by Julius Caesar, the text consists for 
some time of a mere chronology of Roman and 
Church history. The narrative becomes more 
minute in the ninth century, when it records the 
incursions of the Danes, especially during the time 
of Alfred ; and the close agreement of all but one 
of the existing manuscripts for the period of his 
life has been noted as a strong presumption in 
favour of the belief that it was by Alfred's order 
the chronicle was originally compiled. After the 
date of his death the variations in the text of the 
different manuscripts become more frequent, and 

* See p. 32. 



W)t j&axon ©fironfrle. 51 



more material. The style, too, varies here and there 
from the old type. The victories of Athelstan over 
the Scots are recorded in verse ; and also the deeds 
of King Edmund, King Edgar, the martyrdom of 
King Edward, the death of Edward the Confessor, 
and some other matters. But, on the whole, it 
must be confessed that the contents of this chronicle 
are very matter of fact ; and while the study of 
it is indispensable to the historian, it can scarcely 
be recommended as generally attractive reading. 
Nevertheless there are passages in the latter part 
which possess not a little graphic interest ; as, for 
example, the following description of William the 
Conqueror, written, as the extract shows, by one 
who knew him personally : — 

" If any would know what manner of man King William 
was, the glory that he obtained, and of how many lands he was 
lord, then will we describe him as we have known him, we, 
who have looked upon him, and who once lived in his court. 
This King William, of whom we are speaking, was a very wise 
and a great man, and more honoured and more powerful than 
any of his predecessors. He was mild to those good men who 
loved God, but severe beyond measure towards those who 
withstood his will. He founded a noble monastery on the spot 
where God permitted him to conquer England, and he 
established monks in it, and he made it very rich. In his 
days the great monastery at Canterbury was built, and many 
others also throughout England ; moreover, this land was 
filled with monks, who lived after the rule of St. Benedict ; 
and such was the state of religion in his days, that all that 
would, might observe that which was prescribed by their 
respective orders. King William was also held in much 
reverence : he wore his crown three times a year, when he 



52 lEarlg ©Jjrontctog of lEnglanD. 

was in England : at Easter he wore it at Winchester, at 
Pentecost at Westminster, and at Christmas at Gloucester. 
And at these times, all the men of England were with him, 
archbishops, bishops, abbots and earls, thanes and knights. 
So also was he a very stern and a wrathful man, so that 
none durst do anything against his will, and he kept in 
prison those earls who acted against his pleasure. He re- 
moved bishops from their sees, and abbots from their offices, 
and he imprisoned thanes, and at length he spared not his 
own brother Odo. This Odo was a very powerful bishop 
in Normandy, his see was that of Bayeux, and he was fore- 
most to serve the king. He had an earldom in England, 
and when William was in Normandy, he was the first man 
in this country, and him did he cast into prison. Amongst 
other things the good order that William established is not 
to be forgotten ; it was such that any man who was himself 
aught, might travel over the kingdom with a bosom-full of gold 
unmolested ; and no man durst kill another, however great 
the injury he might have received from him. He reigned 
over England, and being sharp-sighted to his own interest, he 
surveyed the kingdom so thoroughly that there was not a 
single hide of land throughout the whole of which he knew 
not the possessor, and how much it was worth, and this he 
afterwards entered in his register.* The land of the Britons 
{i.e. Wales) was under his sway, and he built castles therein ; 
moreover he had full dominion over the Isle of Man (Angle- 
sea). Scotland also was subject to him, from his great 
strength ; the land of Normandy was his by inheritance, and 
he possessed the earldom of Maine ; and had he lived two 
years longer he would have subdued Ireland by his powers, 
and that without a battle. Truly, there was much trouble 
in these times, and very great distress ; he caused castles to 
be built, and oppressed the poor. The king was also of great 
sternness, and he took from his subjects many marks of gold, 
and many hundred pounds of silver, and this either with or 
without right, and with little need. He was given to avarice, 

* This of course is the celebrated Domesday Book. 



©IK gbsxtm (Chronicle. 53 

and greedily loved gain. He made large forests for the deer, 
and enacted laws therewith, so that whoever killed a hart or 
a hind should be blinded. As he forbade killing the deer 
so also the boars ; and he loved the tall stags as if he were 
their father. He also appointed concerning the hares that 
they should go free. The rich complained, and the poor 
murmured, but he was so sturdy that he recked nought of 
them ; they must will all that the king willed, if they would 
live, or would keep their lands, or would hold their posses- 
sions, or would be maintained in their rights. Alas ! that 
any man should so exalt himself, and carry himself in his 
pride over all ! May Almighty God show mercy to his soul, 
and grant him the forgivness of his sins. We have written 
concerning him these things, good and bad, that virtuous 
men might follow after the good and wholly avoid the evil, 
and might go in the way that leadeth to the kingdom of 
heaven." 

From one passage in this extract it will be noted 
that the Norman Conquest gave a considerable 
impulse to the spread of monasticism in England. 
It was politic in a king who desired to enforce order 
and obedience to his own rule, to encourage the 
establishment of communities which afforded a con- 
spicuous example of discipline submitted to by the 
general consent of the members. But William did 
something more than encourage them. He himself 
founded the magnificent abbey of Battle on the 
scene of his great victory at Hastings ; and a 
chronicle composed within the monastery itself 
shows the remarkable interest he took both in the 
original foundation and in its subsequent progress. 
A few extracts from the substance of this chronicle 
will exemplify his feeling on the subject. 

William, it seems, had prosecuted his enterprise 



54 lEatlg ©fjronickrg of lEnglanti, 

in spite of evil omens. On jumping ashore at 
Hastings he fell upon his face, grasping the earth 
with outstretched hands and making his nose bleed. 
His followers whispered to each other their appre- 
hensions. But the witty William Fitz Osbert, his 
faithful sewer, met their objections with a clever 
argument. " By my troth," he said, " it is a token 
of prosperity, not of misfortune ; for, lo ! he hath 
embraced England with both his hands and sealed 
it to posterity with his own blood ; and thus by the 
foreboding of divine Providence is he destined effec- 
tually to win it!" His followers were equally dis- 
mayed before the battle of Hastings itself when, as 
they were helping each other on with their armour, 
some one handed to Duke William a coat of mail, 
with the wrong side foremost. The Duke, however, 
quietly put it on ; said if he had any confidence in 
omens or sorcery he would not that day go to 
battle, but trusting himself only to his Creator, and 
to encourage his followers, he made a vow that if 
victorious he would erect a monastery on the field of 
battle for the salvation of those who fought by his 
side, and especially of those who fell. Among those 
who heard the vow was one William, surnamed Faber, 
or the Smith, a monk of Marmoutier in Normandy, 
— so called because he had distinguished himself in 
days before he was a monk, by manufacturing an 
arrow at an emergency when he was one of a hunt- 
ing party ; and after the victory, as time passed 
away, and the king was continually occupied with 
other matters, William the Smith still kept, the 



@5romcle of battle ®ftfag. 55 

subject before him until steps were taken to execute 
the design. At length William the Smith himself 
was entrusted with its execution. He went over to 
Marmoutier and brought back with him four monks 
of that abbey to view the ground and make a com- 
mencement. The four monks thought the battle- 
field itself unsuitable. The ground was too high. 
A little lower on the western slope of the hill would 
be a more convenient site ; and there accordingly 
they built some little dwellings. But the king, 
inquiring about what they had done, was dissatisfied. 
The monks told him the site he had prescribed was 
on the top of a hill on a dry soil, and destitute of 
water. William was angry and insisted that they 
should build upon the very place where he had 
gained the victory. " As for water," he said, " if God 
spare my life I will so amply provide for this place 
that wine shall be more abundant here than water in 
any other great abbey ! " The monks then alleged 
that no good stone could be found near about ; but 
William, at his own expense, sent ships to Caen to 
bring it. After a good deal of stone had been 
imported, however, it was revealed — so went the 
story — "to a certain religious matron that, upon 
digging in the place indicated to her in a vision, 
they would find plenty of stone for this purpose ;" 
and on search being made accordingly an abundant 
supply was discovered. 

The work still went on slowly " on account of 
some extortioners who sought their own things 
rather than those of Jesus Christ, and laboured 



56 lEarlg ©ftronicletg of lEnglanti. 

more in appearance than in truth. The brethren 
too, were lukewarm, and built within the intended 
circuit of the monastery mean dwellings of little 
cost, for their own residence. And thus by an evil 
example at first, things were put off from day to 
day, and the royal treasures allotted for the further- 
ance of the undertaking were improperly spent, and 
many things conferred upon the place by the king's 
devout liberality carelessly squandered." An abbot 
was appointed who was accidentally drowned ; but 
a successor was chosen in his place, under whom 
both the buildings and the number of the brethren 
increased. This abbot, by name Gausbert, was con- 
secrated in the year 1076, just ten years after the 
battle, by Stigand, bishop of Chichester. The bishop 
at first insisted that the new abbot should come to 
Chichester and have the rite performed there ; but 
the abbot went to the king, who, zealous for the 
honour of the monastery he himself had founded, 
insisted that the bishop should go to Battle, and 
consecrate him in the abbey church itself. Even 
so, when abbot Gausbert some time afterwards paid 
a visit for devotion's sake to the parent monastery 
of Marmoutier where he himself had been a monk, 
the abbot and convent of that monastery seized the 
opportunity to establish their superiority over Battle. 

" They endeavoured to cause the abbot to receive ordina- 
tion in their chapter-house, and thenceforward to compel him 
to go thither as often as they should summon him. But 
Gausbert perceived their design, and when, after his return 
to England, he was repeatedly summoned to Marmoutier, 






©jjtontck of battle ^fclieg. 57 

refused to comply, but repaired to court and complained to 
the king. Whereupon the king was angry, and ordered all 
the monks of Marmoutier who were with him to be sent 
away. He even threatened the abbot himself: c By the 
splendour of God !' said he — for that was his accustomed 
oath — ' if you cross the sea for such an object, or if you evei 
go thither again, you shall never return to England to take 
charge of my abbey.' The abbot obeyed, and thus quieted 
all claims of this kind, and the king confirmed the abbey of 
Battle in its freedom from all subjection to Marmoutier for 
ever." 

From passages like these we can form a pretty 
good idea how even within the walls of monasteries 
the influence of the Conqueror was felt in the en- 
forcement of discipline and order. Monasticism 
under the Saxon rule was always showing symp- 
toms of decay. In the north of England it had 
reached its highest state of development in the 
eighth century. The foundation of Whitby abbey 
by St. Hilda, and of the two monasteries of Wear- 
mouth and Jarrow, in Durham, in the latter of 
which Bede ended his days, had rendered con- 
spicuous service both to literature and to devotion. 
Both high and low took refuge from the world in 
these seclusions. St. Hilda was herself of royal 
blood ; and soon after the death of Bede even the 
king of Northumbria, to whom he had dedicated 
his history, abdicated the throne to assume the 
cowl at Lindisfarne. Another revival took place in 
the south of England under St. Dunstan, in the 
tenth century, seconded by the efforts of King 
Edgar and of Ethelwold bishop of Winchester. 



58 lEarlg ©frronkUrg of lEnglanD, 

But with all this the number of Saxon monasteries 
was small, and religious discipline had very much 
declined before the invasion of the Normans. 

Yet it was in these retreats that all the litera- 
ture the age possessed was written, preserved, and 
handed down to posterity. Literature, indeed, was 
but one of several industries continually practised 
by those communities ; for it was only by small 
societies living in seclusion that the arts of peace 
and civilization could make any progress in days of 
violence and barbarism. Hard labour was the essen- 
tial principle of their discipline ; nor would it have 
been possible for the young communities to subsist 
without it. Each brother had his appointed work, 
whether it were in the field, in the garden, in the 
kitchen, or in the library. The very buildings of 
the monastery were the work of the monks' own 
hands ; nor was there any kind of drudgery needful 
to the general weal that was held in disrepute. 
The "dignity of labour" did not require to be 
vindicated to men who felt its holiness. The archi- 
tect and the mason were not divided ; and we have 
it on record that St. Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, 
carried a hod, and laboured with his own hands at 
the building of his own cathedral. 

Among our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, although 
discipline had relaxed considerably before the 
conquest, these institutions had still produced very 
important and salutary effects. It has been re- 
marked that among them, as among the original 
German races described by Tacitus, agriculture 



Saiiourg of t|K JWonitf, 59 

was in disrepute, or at least very generally 
neglected. The Saxon laws contain numerous 
provisions as regards cattle and pasturage, but 
comparatively few that relate to the enclosure and 
cultivation of land, or the disposal of its produce. 
But in every monastery the land was the principal 
care. Each day after the service of prime the 
monks assembled in their chapter-house, and the 
prior assigned to each his particular labour for the 
day. A few prayers were offered to ask a blessing 
on their work, and the brethren marched, two and 
two, in silence to their allotted task in the fields. 

" From Easter till the beginning of October they were thus 
occupied, from six o'clock in the morning, in some instances 
until ten, in others until noon, the duration of the labour 
being probably modified according to the locality of the 
monastery, or the nature of the occupation. The more widely 
the system was diffused, the more extensive were its benefits. 
In addition to the monks, lay brethren and servants were 
employed in considerable numbers, and as these received 
payment in corn, their services in turn demanded the culti- 
vation of an increased extent of arable land. When the 
quantity thus broken up and brought into tillage so far 
exceeded the immediate requirements of the monastery as to 
permit some portion of it to be leased out, payment of rent 
was made rather in labour and in produce than in money ; 
and numerous privileges of various kinds were granted upon 
the same conditions. Thus each monastery became the 
central point of civilization." * 

As to literary labour, that was only, like every 
other industry, a great means of avoiding idleness, 

* I have quoted these remarks from Mr. Stevenson's preface to 
the second volume of his Chronicle of Abingdon, pp. xiv. — xvi. 



60 lEarlg ©fwonklcrg of lEnglano. 

beneficial to the souls of those who practised it as 
done for the benefit of others. Some discernment, 
indeed, was used in the allotment of functions ; but 
any monk might, at his abbot's desire, be called 
upon for a time to work with the pen instead of 
with the spade or the implements of cookery. For 
monks as a rule were taught to write, but no one 
was allowed to do so without the permission of his 
abbot. All the transcribing, and all the original 
composition, done in the monastery, was done in 
the scriptorium, or writing chamber, by command of 
the abbot and during the hours of daylight. No 
one could enter or leave that chamber without 
permission ; and no one was allowed to execute 
any other work than the specific task assigned to 
him. Strict silence was observed in that place of 
study, and when it was necessary to communicate 
with the armarius, or librarian, the message was 
conveyed by signs. If the accuracy of a transcript 
was to be tested by reading aloud, the work was 
done in an adjoining chamber. 

There was also a methodical division of labour. 
The armarius portioned out the work by the 
abbot's order ; and the writers who had charge of 
the text left spaces for rubrics, ornamented capitals, 
vignettes and other illustrations, which were after- 
wards filled in by other hands. The armarius 
bound up the books, when completed, in wooden 
covers, inspected the whole library two or three 
times a year, repaired injured volumes, and took 
care that they were all properly classified and 



Safcourg of fye 0tonk&, 61 

marked with their proper titles. He provided the 
transcribers with parchment, ink, pens, penknives, 
chalk, pumice-stone for rubbing the parchment, 
knives to cut it with, awls to mark the lines, a 
ruler and a plummet, which he himself also used 
to note omissions in the margin, and a weight to 
keep down the vellum. He also made contracts 
with hired transcribers who were occasionally en- 
gaged to work outside the monastery. 

"The chief work done in the scriptorium" says Sir 
Thomas Hardy,* to whose researches we are indebted for 
the information we have just been communicating, " was the 
transcribing of missals and other service books, not only for 
the use of the house to which it appertained, but for that of 
smaller religious houses not sufficiently wealthy to maintain 
a scriptorium. If the writers were not employed on any 
special work, and a large number of copies of some popular 
treatise was required, a skilful transcriber, well versed in that 
particular subject, read aloud, whilst the rest copied from his 
dictation. To this practice may be attributed the great 
variety of orthography observable in manuscripts written at 
the same time and even in the same house. Great pains 
were taken in copying the classics, the Latin fathers, and all 
books of scholastic learning ; but comparatively little labour 
seems to have been bestowed on the execution of books 
relating to national or monastic histoiy, unless they were in- 
tended for presents." 

It was only in monasteries that literature could 
then be produced, and the value of these institu- 
tions in preserving records of the principal occur- 
rences must have been recognized at a very early 

* Descriptive Catalogue of Materials relating to the History of 
Great Britain and Ireland, vol. iii., preface xviii. 



62 lEatlg <3%otttckr{S f lEnglatrti. 

period. John Fordun, a late fourteenth century- 
writer, is the earliest authority for a statement that 
has been disputed by some — that special persons 
were appointed in the greater abbeys to note events 
and digest them into annals at the end of every 
year. But there is ample evidence that in the days 
of our early kings the monasteries, especially those 
of royal foundation, were regarded as treasure- 
houses of important facts and sometimes enjoined 
to preserve among their own records public docu- 
ments of high significance. An exemplification 
of the Charter of Liberties granted by Henry I. 
was sent to each of the principal abbeys through- 
out the country. So also was the Magna Charta 
of King John, which was never recorded in the 
King's Chancery. So Edward I. in 1291, sent 
orders by writ of privy seal to various monasteries 
to search their chronicles and other records for 
evidence as to the vassalage of Scotland ; and 
when the sovereignty of that country was after- 
wards claimed by the pope, he on summoning the 
parliament at Lincoln in 1301, again ordered 
similar investigations to be made, and commanded 
the information found to be transmitted to himself 
at the parliament. But the most distinct evidence 
of the truth of Fordun's statement is found in the 
fact that the historian Matthew Paris in the year 
1247, three years before the completion of his 
Flores Historiarum, being present by the king's 
command at a celebration of the feast of Edward 
the Confessor, was ordered to take his seat on the 



^Florence of S^otccgtcr. 63 

middle step between the throne and the area of 
the hall, and to write a full account of the pro- 
ceedings that the facts might always stand on 
record. It is clear, therefore, that Matthew Paris 
was distinctly acknowledged as the historiographer 
of St. Alban's monastery, long before the comple- 
tion of his history.* 

It was in monasteries, then, that past acts were 
committed to writing ; and for a long time after 
the days of Bede, they were recorded in annals the 
most bald, dry, and matter-of-fact that could well 
be imagined. Even after the conquest there was 
no immediate change in the form of these compo- 
sitions, nor even is their number very much 
augmented ; for besides the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 
itself there is really but one native source of infor- 
mation to be met with for a long time ; and 
that is a writer in the monastery of Worcester, 
commonly called Florence of Worcester, who is 
believed to have translated largely from some copy 
of the Anglo-Savon Chronicle not now extant. 

The work of Florence, however, deserves men- 
tion as the earliest example in this country of a 
kind of composition of which there are many in 
later times, — a universal chronicle beginning with 
the creation of the world, and embracing, in due 
sequence, the history of all nations both ancient 
and modern. In recent editions of Florence of 
Worcester, all the earlier portion of the work has 
been omitted as containing nothing- of value to the 



* Hardy's Catalogue iii., preface xvili., xx. 



64 lEarig ©Ijromclerg of lEnglatrt). 



modern inquirer, and indeed nothing specially 
characteristic of the author. The universal chronicle, 
in fact, was not composed by Florence himself, 
but was taken from that of Marianus Scotus, an 
Irishman, who spent the latter half of his life 
abroad and died at Mayence about the year 1082. 
This work Florence adopted as his basis and ampli- 
fied in the latter part with a large number of 
notices of English affairs, about which Marianus is 
almost entirely silent. So numerous, indeed, are 
these interpolations that from the date of the 
coming of the Saxons into England we almost lose 
sight of foreign affairs, and of the text of Marianus 
altogether. Yet the style is still the same as that 
of the Saxon Chronicle, — plain, clear, dry, and 
matter-of-fact, without either oratorical embellish- 
ment or warmth of declamation. The text, in fact, 
for a long period, is little more than a translation 
of that Chronicle, incorporating also Asser's Life 
of Alfred ; and how much is really original on the 
part of Florence himself it is difficult to say. The 
Chronicle is a most valuable store of facts, but it is 
nothing more. Two continuations, added to it by 
other hands, bring down the history to the days of 
Edward I., and are on the whole somewhat mofe 
interesting than the original work. 

The latest manuscript of the Saxon Chronicle, 
breaks off abruptly just after the accession of 
Henry I. It would seem, therefore, that the new 
literary influences at the court of Henry Beauclerc 
at once extinguished a mode of recording events 



lEa&mer. 65 

which was no longer necessary. A real Anglo- 
Saxon literature could not long survive the exist- 
ence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom. After the 
conquest it became more and more of an anachro- 
nism. For a time the facts were recorded as 
before in what was still the language of the people ; 
but the increased communication with the conti- 
nent, and with continental scholars in days when 
every one who could read at all must have been 
able to read Latin, made it ultimately impossible 
to continue the practice. So the Saxon Chronicle 
died, as it has been said, of pure exhaustion, and a 
new race of historians continued the account of 
this country's progress. 

Of these new historians the first was Eadmer, a 
monk of Canterbury, who wrote, not a universal 
chronicle, but a history of his own time (Historia 
Novorum, sive sui sceculi) in six books, which has 
been four times printed. This Eadmer, who is 
supposed to have been born about the year 1060 
(in which case he must have been a child at the time 
of the Norman Conquest) was a devoted friend of 
Archbishop Anselm, and shared his exile on the 
continent when William Rufus was displeased with 
him. One of the main objects of his work is to 
give an account of this dispute between the king 
and the archbishop, which, as is well known, arose 
on the question of investiture. On this subject, as 
Sir Thomas Hardy remarks, Eadmer may be natur- 
ally suspected of being a partial authority, but 
that he states the arguments on either side with 

ENCr. F 



66 iEarlg ©Urometers of lEnglarttJ. 

apparently great fidelity. After Anselm's death 
he also enjoyed the friendship of his successor, 
Archbishop Radulf or Ralph (d'Escures) in whose 
company he paid a visit to Rome. When he came 
back he was elected bishop of St. Andrew's, but 
having a dispute about his consecration with 
Thurstan, Archbishop of York, he preferred to 
give up his see and return to his old monastery. 
He is supposed to have died about the year 1124.* 

Eadmer was instigated to compose this work, as 
he himself tells us in the preface, by the great 
difficulty which he knew to be experienced by many 
men in that day in obtaining knowledge of past 
events ; which made him think that those who had 
left behind them written accounts of their own 
times had done a great thing for posterity. The 
work, however, is more of an ecclesiastical than a 
political history. Written with great clearness and 
elegance, it briefly traces the history of the English 
Church from the days of Edgar and St. Dunstan 
to those of Lanfranc, and gives a pretty full 
account of transactions under William Rufus and 
Henry I. At first the author had intended to 
conclude with the death of Anselm ; but after 
completing so much of the history in four books 
he was induced by the satisfaction the work had 
given to a large number of readers to add two 
books more. 

As an example of the general character of the 
work we give a slightly abridged translation of the 

* Hardy, ii. 147. 



Satimer. 6 7 

passages relating to the election of Anselrn to the 
see of Canterbury : — 

" On the death of William I., his son William II. promised 
with the most solemn oaths to Archbishop Lan franc, without 
whose assent he could not obtain the kingdom (for he feared 
that the delay of his coronation would entail loss of the 
coveted honour), that if he became king he would rule the 
whole kingdom with justice, equity, and mercy, and defend 
the Church against all who would invade her liberties. But 
after he was crowned he little regarded this promise, and in 
answer to the reproaches of Lanfranc he asked in anger, 
'Who is there who can fulfil everything that he has 
promised ? ' After Lanfranc's death he invaded Canterbury 
cathedral, took an inventory of the property, taxed the living 
of the monks, and, in effect, set the rest up to auction to the 
highest bidder. The king's satellites invaded the cloisters, 
demanding the king's money with threats, to the scandal of 
religion. Some of the monks sought refuge in other monas- 
teries, the rest endured many trials and outrages. The same 
cruelty was practised in every monastery or cathedral, on the 
death of the abbot or bishop, for nearly five years. 

" In the fourth year Hugh, Earl of Chester, invited Anselm, 
Abbot of Bee, into England, to inspect a church within his 
domains which he intended to convert into a monastery. 
Anselm declined ; for people had begun to talk about him in 
private and say that if he came to England he would be 
made Archbishop of Canterbury, which was quite against his 
inclination ; indeed, he was firmly resolved not to undertake 
such an office. The earl, however, fell ill and sent to 
Anselm, entreating him for old friendship to come to him at 
once for his spiritual consolation. After repeated messages 
the earl warned him that if he still delayed to come to him 
he would regret it through all eternity. Anselm was moved 
to depart from his resolution. He had other causes, indeed, 
relating to his own church, for wishing to go to England, but 
had been restrained hitherto by that one fear of being made 



68 lEarlg ©ijromderg of 3EngIanfc. 

archbishop. He crossed the Channel, landed at Dover, and 
found the earl recovered from his illness. He was detained 
in England nearly five months and nothing was said of his 
promotion, so that he seemed to have escaped the danger he 
so much apprehended ; but on desiring from the king a 
licence to return, he was refused. Meanwhile the lords 
assembled at the king's court at Christmas complained of 
the delay in filling up the see, and urged the king (a thing 
posterity will hardly credit) that he would allow prayers to be 
put up in the churches throughout England that God would 
inspire him with pity to allow a new pastor to be appointed 
and relieve the Church from its oppression. The king, 
though enraged, assented, saying whatever the Church 
demanded he meant to have his own way in the end. 
The bishops then consulted Anselm, who, though loth 
to be preferred to them even in such a matter, drew up a 
form of prayer for the occasion which was approved by the 
whole nobility. 

" Meanwhile, one of the principal lords happened one day 
to remark to the king that he knew no man of such sanctity 
as the Abbot of Bee, for he loved nothing but God, and in all 
his doings cared for nothing transitory. ' For nothing, 
replied the king, derisively, ' what, not even for the Arch- 
bishopric of Canterbury ? ' The other replied, ' For that 
least of all, in my opinion, and in that of many others.' The 
king swore that Anselm would run to embrace him, if he had 
any confidence he could by any means attain to it. And he 
added, ' By the Holy Face of Lucca' (for so he was wont to 
swear), 'neither he nor any one else but myself shall be arch- 
bishop this time.' On saying this immediately a serious ill- 
ness overtook him, and laid him on his bed till after some 
days he seemed on the point of death. All the nobles and 
councillors assembled, expecting his decease. He was 
advised to think of the weal of his soul, open the prisons, 
release the captives, forgive debts, and restore liberty to the 
churches by allowing them pastors, especially Canterbury, as 
the oppression to which it had been subjected was known 



lEaDmer. 69 

throughout Christendom. At that time Anselm, ignorant of 
all this, was staying not far from Gloucester, where the king 
was ill. He was sent for to come to the king in all haste 
and to fortify him in the hour of death by his presence. 
Hearing the news, he makes speed and comes. He enters to 
the king, is asked what counsel he judged most wholesome 
for the dying man. He first desires to be informed what had 
been thought best for the sick man by those about him in his 
absence. He hears, approves, and adds, ' It is written, 
" Begin to the Lord in confession ; " so it appears to me that 
first of all he should make a pure confession what he knows 
he has done against God, and promise that if he recover 
health he will amend everything without feigning, and then 
order those things which you advise to be done without delay.' 
This advice is approved of, and the duty of receiving the 
confession is committed to himself. It is reported to the 
king what Anselm thought expedient for the welfare of his 
soul. He immediately acquiesces, and with compunction of 
heart promises to do everything that Anselm recommended, 
and henceforth to lead a life of gentleness and uprightness. 
To this he pledges his faith, and appoints his bishops as 
sureties between himself and God, commissioning some of 
them to make this vow upon the altar in his name. An edict 
is written out and confirmed with the king's seal, by which 
all captives in his dominion are released, all debts irrevocably 
remitted, all offences heretofore perpetrated committed to 
perpetual oblivion. The people are, moreover, promised 
good and holy laws, inviolable observance of justice, and a 
serious inquiry as to wrongdoings which should terrify others. 
There was universal joy, and thanks were given to God with 
prayers for the salvation of such and so great a king. 

" Meanwhile the king is advised by some good men to re- 
lease the common mother of the whole kingdom [the Church 
of Canterbury] from her state of widowhood. He consents 
willingly, and confesses he had this in his mind. It is asked, 
therefore, who could be most worthy of this honour. But all 
awaiting the king's reply he himself announced — and universal 



70 lEatlg ©fcrontclerg of 3Englan&. 

applause followed the declaration — that the Abbot Anselm 
was most worthy. Anselm at this was terror-struck and grew 
pale ; and when he was taken to the king that he might 
receive the archiepiscopal investiture from his hand, he 
resisted with all his power and declared that for many causes 
it could not be done. The bishops therefore take him apart 
and say to him, ' What are you doing ? What do you mean ? 
Why do you strive against God ? You see that almost all 
Christianity has perished in England, everything has got into 
confusion, all abominations have broken out, and everywhere 
we ourselves and the churches we ought to rule have fallen 
in danger of eternal death by the tyranny of this man ; and 
you, when you have power to relieve us, scorn to do so.' He 
answered, ' Bear with me, I pray you. I acknowledge it is 
true, tribulations are many and have need of help. But con- 
sider, I pray. I am old, and impatient of every earthly 
labour. How then can I, who cannot labour for myself, 
undertake the labour of th« whole Church throughout 
England ? Moreover, my conscience bears me witness that 
ever since I became a monk I have shunned secular affairs, 
nor could I ever willingly apply myself to them, for I find 
nothing in them to excite interest in me.' ' Well,' said they, 
' do not fear to take upon yourself the primacy of the Church, 
and go before us in the way of God, giving orders what we 
shall do and we pledge ourselves to obey you. Do you devote 
yourself to God for us and we will attend to secular matters 
for you.' ' Impossible,' he said ; ' I am abbot of a monastery 
in another kingdom, having an archbishop over me and an 
earthly prince to whom I owe subjection, and monks to whom 
I am bound to afford counsel and aid. I cannot leave my 
monks without their consent, nor forsake my allegiance with- 
out my prince's permission, nor withdraw myself from obedi- 
ence to my archbishop without his absolution.' 'But you 
will easily gain the consent of them all,' said they. Anselm 
remained obstinate, and was taken to the king, who being 
told of his persistent refusal was distressed to tears, and said, 
' O Anselm, what is it that you do ? Why do you deliver me 






lEatimcr. 7 1 

to eternal torments ? Remember, I pray you, the faithful 
friendship my father and mother always bore to you and you 
to them ; by it I conjure you not to allow their son to perish 
both in soul and body. For I am sure that I shall so perish 
if I die keeping the archbishopric in my hands. Help, there- 
fore, good father, and accept the archbishopric, for the reten- 
tion of which I shall be too much confounded and fear lest 
I shall be further confounded to eternity.' The bystanders 
were pricked at these words, and as Anselm still refused to 
undertake such a charge they broke in, and said to him with 
some indignation — ' What madness has taken possession of 
you ? You annoy the king — you positively kill him. If you do 
not fear to exasperate him by your obstinacy when he is 
dying, be assured that all the troubles, oppressions, and 
crimes which henceforth will press upon England will be 
imputed to you if you do not obviate them now by accepting 
the pastoral office.' Placed in these difficulties Anselm turns 
to two monks that were with him, Baldwin and Eustace, and 
said to them — ' Ah, brothers, why do you not help me ? ' He 
said this (before God I lie not) in such a state of anxiety, as 
he was wont to affirm, that if he had then been given his 
choice, he would (but for reverence to the will of God) gladly 
have preferred to die rather than be promoted to the arch- 
bishopric. Baldwin therefore replied — ' If it be the will of 
God that it should be so, shall we oppose His will ? ' These 
words were followed by tears, and the tears by an effusion of 
blood from his nostrils, showing plainly to every one from 
what condition of heart the words proceeded. Hearing this 
answer, Anselm said, l Alas, how soon your staff is broken ! ' 
The king, therefore, perceiving that all his labour was in vain, 
ordered them all to fall at his feet, if by any means they 
could gain his consent. But when they fell, he fell too before 
the king's feet, nor would he be moved from his first inten- 
tion. But they being provoked at him, and accusing each 
other of sloth for the delay which they had suffered in 
meeting his objections, cried out, ' Bring the pastoral staff, 
the pastoral staff ! ' And seizing his right arm, some 



72 3Ear!j) ®btowxhr,$ of lEngtanti. 

dragged, some pushed him to the king's bed-side. The king 
delivered the staff to him, but he clenched his hand and 
refused to take it by any means. The bishops attempted to 
raise his fingers, so as to get the staff put into his hand, but 
having spent some time in vain in this effort, and he com- 
plaining of the injury done him, at length they got the fore- 
finger raised, which he immediately bent back again, and 
the staff was placed in his closed hand, and was held down 
and retained in it by the hands of the bishops. The multi- 
tude exclaimed, ' Long live the bishop, long live the bishops 
and clergy ! " They began to chant the Te Deum, and carried, 
rather than led, the elect archbishop into the neighbouring 
church, he resisting all that he could, and saying, ' It is naught 
that you do, it is naught.' The usual ceremonies being per- 
formed, Anselm returns to the king and says to him — ' I tell 
you, lord king, that in this illness you will not die, and for 
this reason I wish you to know how you may well correct 
what has now been done about me, because I never granted, 
nor do I grant, that it is valid.' This said, he turned back 
and departed from him. But the bishops and all the nobility 
leading him away, he passed out of the chamber. Then 
turning to them, he broke out in these words : ' Do you 
know what it is you attempt ? You propose to yoke an 
untamed bull and an old and feeble sheep together in one 
yoke to the plough. And what will come of it ? The un- 
tameable fierceness of the bull will so tear the sheep, dragging 
it hither and thither through thorns and brambles, that though 
fruitful in wool, milk, and lambs, if it do not throw off the 
yoke, it will be unable to yield any of these things, and will 
be no longer of any service, either to itself or any one else. 
You have acted unwisely. Have regard to the plough of the 
Church, as the Apostle says (i Cor. iii. 9), "Ye are God's 
husbandry, God's building." This plough in England two 
specially strong oxen draw and govern, the king and the 
Archbishop of Canterbury — the one in secular justice and 
dominion, the other in divine teaching and authority. One 
of these oxen, Archbishop Lanfranc, is dead ; the other, with 






lEalimcr. 73 

the untameable ferocity of a bull, is now found in possession 
of the plough, and you, instead of the dead ox, wish to yoke 
me, an old feeble sheep, with the untamed bull ! ' With these 
and other words, unable to disguise his grief of heart he burst 
into tears and went to his own home." 

I have been the more willing to quote this 

remarkable passage at length, or with very slight 

abridgment here and there, because it has never 

been translated before, and the substance of the 

facts it contains is known to the general reader 

only through modern biographers of Anselm, who 

interpret his conduct according to the bent of their 

own minds. Taken in its simplicity, as I think it 

ought to be, it certainly contains things that the 

writer was justified in suspecting posterity would 

hardly credit. But on the other hand, it surely 

exhibits to us one of the most typical examples, 

and reveals with peculiar distinctness the character 

of the great struggle going on in that day between 

temporal and spiritual authority. It was, in fact, the 

struggle between power and conscience ; between 

power, ever strongly desirous to assert itself, and 

conscience anxious to decline, if possible, a very 

unequal combat. It was an age when conscience 

only seemed safe in the seclusion of a monastery 

and by no means desired to be dragged from 

thence by violence to do battle with the kings of 

this world. Yet, somehow, as will happen in all 

ages, even kings could not do altogether without 

it ; and the recluse had to be brought forth into 

the light of day to speak his mind before the rulers 



74 lEarlg ©Stontclerg of lEnglanti. 

of the earth. Anselm's strong reluctance to assume 
responsibility gave his words all the greater weight 
when it was forced upon him ; and though driven 
into exile afterwards for his integrity, he was 
recalled by Henry I. on his accession, in a manner 
which showed clearly that conscience had won the 
victory. " I," wrote the new king to the refugee, 
" I, by the will of God, elected by the clergy and 
people of England, and, although unwillingly on 
account of your absence, now consecrated king, 
along with the whole people of England, beseech 
you as a father that you will come as soon as 
possible and give counsel to me your son, and to 
the same people the care of whose souls is com- 
mitted to you. Myself and the people of the whole 
realm of England I commit to your counsel and to 
that of those who ought to counsel me along with 
you." 

The seclusion of a monastery is not the kind of 
influence which we should naturally expect to pro- 
mote a knowledge of the world. Yet even in this 
respect the monk of those days appears to advan- 
tage in comparison with the rough warriors and 
kings of whom he tells us. The seclusion, in fact, 
as what we have related clearly shows, was by no 
means so close as to prevent a very considerable 
amount of contact with the outer world. Either in 
the affairs of his house, or for some other reason, an 
abbot found it occasionally necessary to go, or send 
one of his brethren, into other countries — most fre- 
quently to Rome; and in the case of Eadmer, we 



l£atim«r. 75 

have a junior member of a monastic house accom- 
panying an archbishop on that journey. At Rome, 
the very centre of the world, the monk learned to 
appreciate the politics of his own day in a way that 
no one else could ; and he carried back into his 
convent and imparted to his brethren a more or 
less sagacious account of all that was going on. It 
was impossible that the tyranny of his own king 
should altogether tame him when escape to Rome 
was at once a safety-valve and means of enlighten- 
ment which enabled him to hold the king himself 
in check. In the convent he could take counsel 
with his brethren, men who probably knew far more 
about European affairs, as well as the past history 
of their own country, than the king's council itself. 
It was in monasteries, therefore, that the great 
statesmen of the day were educated ; and by their 
influence even the selfish and capricious conduct of 
tyrants was reduced to something like a practical 
aim, and governed by an intelligible purpose. 

At present, however, we are concerned with the 
monk only in his capacity of historian. 

Eadmer was avowedly the historian of his own 
times only, and, as we have seen, his sole concern 
is with ecclesiastical affairs. But he was immedi- 
ately followed by other writers, who took a more 
comprehensive view, tracing the whole course of 
English history, alike in its ecclesiastical and in its 
civil and political aspects, back from the days of 
Bede, and adding very lively descriptions of what 
was done in their own day. To these historians 
we must now turn our attention. 



76 lEarlg ©ftrontclerg cf lEnglanD. 

William of Malmesbury, as he himself informs 
us,* was partly of English, and partly of Norman 
parentage, — a circumstance from which, as he con- 
sidered, and we have no doubt truly, he was able 
to take a more dispassionate view of the acts of 
William the Conqueror than was commonly done 
in his day by either party. He was born appa- 
rently about thirty years after the conquest, as it 
appears by some of his writings that Henry I. was 
dead when he attained his fortieth year, and he also 
mentions having witnessed, when a boy, certain 
things which took place at Malmesbury in the time 
of Abbot Godfrey, who died in the year 1105. He 
was probably placed at Malmesbury by his parents 
for the sake of his education, in which he shows 
that they both took very great interest. From his 
childhood he took a delight in books, in which he 
was encouraged by his father, and the love of lite- 
rature grew with advancing years. " Indeed," he 
says, " I was so instructed by my father that, had I 
turned aside to other pursuits, I should have con- 
sidered it as jeopardy to my soul and discredit to 
my character." In due time he became a monk at 
the place where he was brought up. He collected 
books for the use of the monastery, and was made 
their librarian, and afterwards precentor. In the 
year 1 140, when the monastery, which had been 
annexed by Roger, bishop of Salisbury, to his see, 
obtained leave on his death to choose its own 
abbots as formerly, William declined that very 

, Gesta Regum, Book iii, preface. 



William of J&almegfeurg. 77 

onerous office in favour of his colleague John, by 
whom the house, as he states, was rescued from 
thraldom.* In 1 141 he took part in the council at 
Winchester against King Stephen ; and he prob- 
ably died in or shortly after 1 142, the year in which 
his latest work, the Historia Novella abruptly comes 
to an end. 

This is all that is known of the life of the man. 
Of his intellectual capacity and literary powers his 
works bear witness. His reputation as an author 
in his own day was wide-spread, and he received 
requests from various monasteries to write the 
history of their communities or the lives of their 
patron saints ; in compliance with which he wrote 
for the monks of Glastonbury the lives of St. 
Patrick and St. Dunstan, besides other treatises of 
the miracles and martyrdoms of particular saints. 
His industry appears to have been unflagging, and 
in the composition of his principal works he seems 
to have exhausted all the materials that were then 
available. But what is more remarkable is the 
clear and lucid style in which he has woven all 
the information that he found into a connected 
narrative. He is a genuine historian, not a dry 
compiler of annals like the writers who preceded 
him ; and he himself feels keenly the disgrace that 
no one since the days of Bede had succeeded in 
producing a readable history of English affairs. 

Nor is his work less valuable in respect of the 

* "Hardy's Descriptive Catalogue," ii. 155. W. Malm., Gesta 
Reg. and Hist. Novella. 



73 lEarlg Chroniclers of lEnglanl). 

judgment he displays in dealing with the informa- 
tion handed down to him. In many instances, 
recording a doubtful story, he is careful to state 
that he reports it merely as it was given to him ; 
and even in writing about the miracles of saints he 
is generally anxious to make the first authors of 
those legends responsible for their truth. His mind 
had received a training in youth which evidently 
had raised him greatly above the superstitions of 
the time and made him an excellent judge of 
evidences, both physical and moral. He tells us 
himself of his early studies that he had devoted 
himself to various branches of literature, though 
not with equal ardour. In logic he had been 
content merely to be a listener. Medicine he had 
studied with somewhat more attention. " But 
now," he says, " having scrupulously examined 
the several branches of ethics, I bow down to its 
majesty, because it spontaneously unveils itself to 
those who study it, and directs their minds to moral 
practice ; history more especially, which, by an 
agreeable recapitulation of past events, excites its 
readers by example to frame their lives to the 
pursuit of good, or to aversion from evil. When, 
therefore, at my own expense I had procured his- 
torians of foreign nations, I proceeded during my 
domestic leisure, to inquire if anything concerning 
our own country could be found worthy of handing 
down to posterity. Hence it arose that, not content 
with the writings of ancient times, I began myself 
to compose ; not, indeed to display any learning, 



2&UUam of J&almegfcttrg. 79 

which is comparatively nothing, but to bring to 
light events lying concealed in the confused mass 
of antiquity. In consequence, rejecting vague 
opinions, I have studiously sought for chronicles 
far and near, though I confess I have scarcely 
profited anything by this industry ; for perusing 
them all, I still remained poor in information, 
though I ceased not my researches as long as I 
could find anything to read." 

His two principal works are named " The Acts 
of the English Kings" {Gesta Regum Anglorum), 
and "The Acts of the English Bishops" {Gesta 
Pontificum Anglorum). Another treatise giving an 
account of the abbey of Glastonbury from its sup- 
posed foundation by Joseph of Arimathsea, to the 
author's own time, contains some particulars of 
manners and customs. But the Acts of the Kings 
is, as its name implies, his most important con- 
tribution to the political history of England. 

This work extends from the coming of the 
Saxons into England to the twenty-eighth year 
of King Henry I., or the year of our Lord 1128. 
In some manuscripts it only comes down to the 
year 1120, where it would seem the author himself 
brought the work to a close ; but an examination 
of the different manuscripts, shows that he issued at 
least three editions of it, if not more. He moreover 
afterwards added a continuation under the title of 
Historia Novella, or Modern History, bringing the 
narrative of events down to the year 1 142 ; and it 
would seem he corrected the original work in some 



80 lEarlg ©jjronickrg of lEnglant). 

places even after it was finally completed, of which 
we have an interesting example at the end of the 
fourth book. Speaking of the career of Robert 
Curthose, of Normandy, the eldest son of the 
Conqueror, and how he was finally deprived even 
of the Duchy of Normandy, and shut up in prison 
by his brother King Henry ; the author added, as 
we find in one manuscript, " and whether he ever will 
be set free is doubtful." But the reading in most of 
the manuscripts is, " nor was he ever liberated till the 
day of his death," showing clearly that the text was 
amended several years after the conclusion of the 
history, for Robert did not die till 1134. 

The materials of the earlier portion of the work 
are of course derived from other writers ; and 
these, for the most part, can be pretty well iden- 
tified. Bede and the Saxon Chronicle are among 
the chief; but the writings of Alcuin, of Ethel- 
werd, of Eadmer, of William of Poitiers and a 
number of other authors, both native and foreign, 
were certainly among his authorities. In short, 
there was no available source of information of 
which he did not make ample use. 

The third book, leaving for a time the current 
of- English history, begins with an account of the 
career of William the Conqueror's father and of 
himself in Normandy, and then describes the 
battle of Hastings. The author's comments on 
that great event are deeply significant of the 
causes of the victory and the success of Norman 
rule in England : — 



2&tlltam of iftalnKsfturg. 81 

" This was a fatal day to England, a melancholy havoc 
of our dear country, through its change of masters. For it 
had long since adopted the manners of the Angles, which had 
been very various according to the times ; for in the first year 
of their arrival they were barbarians in their looks and man- 
ners, warlike in their usages, heathens in their rules ; but, 
after embracing the faith of Christ, by degrees, and in process 
of time, from the peace they enjoyed, regarding arms only in 
a secondary light, they gave their whole attention to religion. 
I say nothing of the poor, the meanness of whose fortune 
often restrains them from overstepping the bounds of justice. 
I omit men of ecclesiastical rank, whom sometimes respect 
to their profession and sometimes the fear of shame, suffer 
not to deviate from the truth ; I speak of princes, who from 
the greatness of their power might have full liberty to indulge 
in pleasure ; some of whom in their own country, and others 
at Rome, changing their habit, obtained a heavenly kingdom 
and a saintly intercourse. Many during their whole lives in 
outward appearance only embraced the present world, in order 
that they might exhaust their treasures on the poor, or divide 
them amongst monasteries. What shall I say of the multi- 
tudes of bishops, hermits, and abbots ? Does not the whole 
island blaze with such numerous relics of its natives that you 
can scarcely pass a village of any consequence but you hear 
the name of some new saint, besides the numbers of whom all 
notices have perished through the want of records ? Never- 
theless, in process of time, the desire after literature and 
religion had decayed for several years before the arrival of 
the Normans. The clergy, contented with a very slight degree 
of learning, could hardly stammer out the words of the sacra- 
ments ; and a person who understood grammar was an object 
of wonder and astonishment. The monks mocked the rule of 
their order by fine vestments and the use of every kind of 
food. The nobility, given up to luxury and wantonness, went 
not to church in the morning after the manner of Christians, 
but merely, in a careless manner, heard matins and masses 
from a hurrying priest in their chambers, amid the blandish- 
ENG. G 



82 lEarlg ©Jironiclerjs of lEnglanD. 

ments of their wives. The commonalty, left unprotected, 
became a prey to the most powerful, who amassed fortunes 
by either seizing on their property, or by selling their persons 
into foreign countries ; although it be an innate quality of 
this people to be more inclined to revelling than to the accu- 
mulation of wealth. There was one custom, repugnant to 
nature, which they adopted ; namely, to sell their female 
servants when pregnant by them, and after they had satisfied 
their lust, either to public prostitution, or foreign slavery. 
Drinking in parties was a universal practice, in which occu- 
pation they passed entire nights as well as days. They 
consumed their whole substance in mean and despicable 
houses ; unlike the Normans and French, who in noble and 
splendid mansions lived with frugality. The vices attendant 
on drunkenness, which enervate the human mind, followed ; 
hence it arose that engaging William, more with rashness 
and precipitate fury than military skill, they doomed them- 
selves and their country to slavery by one, and that an easy, 
victory. ( For nothing is less effective than rashness ; and 
what begins with violence quickly ceases, or is repelled.' In 
fine, the English at that time, wore short garments reaching 
to the mid-knee ; they had their hair cropped, their beards 
shaven, their arms laden with golden bracelets, their skin 
adorned with punctured designs. They were accustomed to 
eat till they became surfeited, and to drink till they were sick. 
These latter qualities they imparted to their conquerors ; as 
to the rest, they adopted their manners. I would not, how- 
ever, have these bad propensities universally ascribed to the 
English. I know that many of the clergy at that day, trod 
the paths of sanctity, by a blameless life : I know that many 
of the laity, of all ranks and conditions in this nation, were 
well pleasing to God. Be injustice far from this account ; 
the accusation does not involve the whole indiscriminately; 
* But as in peace the mercy of God often cherishes the bad 
and the good together, so equally does His severity some- 
times include them both in captivity.' 
" Moreover, the Normans, that I may speak of them also, 



32ltUtam of Jftalmegfiurg. 8$ 

were at that time, and are even now, proudly apparelled; 
delicate in their food, but not excessive. They are a race 
inured to war, and can hardly live without it ; fierce in rush- 
ing against the enemy ; and where strength fails of success, 
ready to use stratagem, or to corrupt by bribery. As I have 
related, they live in large edifices with economy ; envy their 
equals ; wish to excel their superiors ; and plunder their 
subjects, though they defend them from others ; they are 
faithful to their bonds, though a slight offence renders them 
perfidious. They weigh treachery by its chance of success, 
and change their sentiments with money. They are, how- 
ever, the kindest of nations, and they esteem strangers 
worthy of equal honour with themselves. They also inter- 
marry with their vassals. They revived, by their arrival, the 
observances of religion, which were everywhere grown lifeless 
in England. You might see churches rise in every village, 
and monasteries in the towns and cities, built after a style 
unknown before ; you might behold the country flourishing 
with renovated rites ; so that each wealthy man accounted 
that day lost to him, which he had neglected to signalize by 
some magnificent action." 

Book III., from which the above extract is taken, 
is entirely occupied with the history of William the 
Conqueror and his contemporaries. Book IV., in 
like manner, is devoted to William Rufus and to 
the first Crusade ; and nowhere do the vigour and 
liveliness of the author appear to greater advantage 
than in describing that great movement. No lan- 
guage, indeed, could better enable us to realize an 
age of enthusiasm than the following : — 

" This ardent love not only inspired the continental 
provinces, but even all who had heard the name of Christ, 
whether in the most distant islands or savage countries. 
The Welshman left his hunting, the Scot his fellowship with 



8 4 iEarlg ©frroniclerg of lEnglanD. 

vermin, the Dane his drinking party, the Norwegian his raw 
fish. Lands were deserted of their husbandmen ; houses of 
their inhabitants ; even whole cities migrated. There was 
no regard to relationship ; affection to their country was held 
in little esteem : God alone was placed before their eyes. 
"Whatever was stored in granaries, or hoarded in chambers, 
to answer the hopes of the avaricious husbandman, or thecove- 
tousness of the miser, all, all was deserted ; they hungered 
and thirsted after Jerusalem alone. Joy attended such as 
proceeded, while grief oppressed those who remained. But 
why do I say remained ? You might see the husband depart- 
ing with his wife, indeed with all his family ; you would smile 
to see the whole household laden on a carriage, about to 
proceed on their journey. The road was too narrow for the 
passengers, the path too confined for the travellers, so thickly 
were they thronged with endless multitudes. The number 
surpassed all human imagination, though the itinerants were 
estimated at six millions. Doubtless, never did so many 
nations unite in one opinion ; never did so immense a popu- 
lation subject their unruly passions to one, and almost to no 
direction. For the strangest wonder to behold was, that 
such a countless multitude marched gradually through various 
Christian countries without plundering, though there was none 
to restrain them. Mutual regard blazed forth in all ; so that 
if any one found in his possession what he knew did not 
belong to him, he exposed it everywhere for several days to 
be owned ; and the desire of the finder was suspended till 
perchance the wants of the loser might be repaired." 

No one will say after reading passages like these 
that literary art and descriptive power were un- 
known among writers of the middle ages. William 
of Malmesbury was essentially a pictorial writer, 
and nothing can exceed the skill with which he 
depicts events and incidents. We are thankful to 
him not only for graphic accounts of the actions, 



MItam of J&ahtwsBurp. 85 

but for personal notices of many of the leaders in 
the Crusade, which are full of interest. We are 
told how Godfrey of Boulogne, at the siege of 
Antioch, " with a Lorrainian sword cut asunder a 
Turk who had demanded single combat, and one- 
half of the man lay panting on the ground while 
the horse, at full speed, carried away the other, 
so firmly the miscreant sat," adds the historian, 
with an involuntary admiration of the fighting quali- 
ties, even of an infidel, though he is firmly per- 
suaded all along that the very same pertinacity and 
valour which were glorious beyond measure ' in the 
service of the Cross were the reverse of admirable 
in its enemies. Robert of Normandy, son of 
William the Conqueror, is described to the very 
life with his short stature, projecting belly, his easy 
good nature, improvidence, and fitful indignation. 
We understand most perfectly the man who was 
always throwing away his advantages, and can 
almost sympathise with the feeling of the historian, 
that his misfortunes were a punishment for that 
ignoble love of ease which led him to reject the 
kingdom of Jerusalem. He is altogether a remark- 
able contrast to his brother Henry Beauclerc, whose 
character is portrayed at even greater length. Born 
in England after his fathers coming over, he was 
cherished by all about him more than his elder 
brothers, to all of whom, it seems to have been 
thought, he would have been preferred in the 
succession. The care bestowed on his education 
bore good fruit. He used to say in his father's 



86 lEarlg €f)tonlcfajs of lEnglairt). 

hearing that " an illiterate king is a crowned ass," 
and when he came to the crown himself his learn- 
ing, in William of Malmesbury's opinion, assisted 
him much in the science of governing. This writer 
extols highly the politic arts that he had learned 
from philosophy, the energy and decision of his 
character, the inflexible firmness with which he 
administered justice. And in those days, it is to 
be observed, justice was administered by the king 
personally, sometimes in a very rough and primi- 
tive fashion, which seems rather amusing. "The 
measure of his own arm," says the chronicler, 
" was applied to correct the false ell of the traders, 
and enjoined for the followers of his court at which- 
ever of his possessions he might be resident ; and 
they were instructed what they should accept with- 
out payment from the country folks, and how much, 
and at what price they should purchase, the trans- 
gressors being punished by a heavy fine or loss of 
life." 

Comparatively little is said in this book about 
the political history of Henry's reign. There is an 
interesting account of his first queen Matilda, and 
of the unfortunate drowning of his son William. 
There is also mention of the marriage of his 
daughter Maud to the Emperor Henry V., and an 
account of that Emperor's dispute with Pope 
Paschal. But the religious revival of which the 
foundation of Reading Abbey was one indication 
appears to have made a deeper impression on the 
author than the political events of his own day ; 



g&Uliam of J«almegburg. 87 

and the work concludes with some notices of the 
more remarkable churchmen or heads of religious 
houses who had recently died in the odour of 
sanctity. 

The Historia Novella of William of Malmesbury, 
though commonly regarded as a continuation of the 
Gesta Regum, is really a separate work undertaken 
at the request of Robert, Earl of Gloucester, natural 
son of Henry I., for the express purpose of record- 
ing certain very notable events which at the time 
had recently taken place in England, as the author 
says, " through the miraculous power of God." 
The events thus alluded to were simply those of 
the contest between King Stephen and the Empress 
Maud, in which the Earl of Gloucester himself took 
a very prominent part ; and it might, perhaps, be 
considered from this that the treatise is somewhat 
of a partisan character. But it is certainly written 
in the style of an impartial historian, and has never 
yet been taxed with unfairness. The author, in- 
deed, does not confine himself merely to those 
subjects which concern the civil war in England, 
but in his introductory chapter gives some account 
among other things of the double papal election 
after the death of Honorius II. He also conde- 
scends to notice matters characteristic of the times 
which were by no means of such momentous con- 
sequence ; and the reader will feel grateful for the 
following anecdote which occurs in his brief sum- 
mary of the later years of Henry I. : — 



83 I;arlg ©jjromclerg of Isnglanti. 

" In his twenty-eighth year the king returned from Nor- 
mandy ; in his twenty-ninth a circumstance occurred in 
England which may seem surprising to our long-haired 
gallants, who, forgetting what they were born, transform 
themselves into the fashion of females by the length of their 
locks. A certain English knight, who prided himself on the 
luxuriancy of his tresses, being stung by conscience on the 
subject, seemed to feel in a dream as though some person 
strangled him with his ringlets. Awaking in a fright, he 
immediately cut off all his superfluous hair. The example 
spread throughout England ; and, as recent punishment is 
apt to affect the mind, almost all military men allowed their 
hair to be cropped in a proper manner, without reluctance. 
But this decency was not of long continuance ; for scarcely 
had a year expired ere all who thought themselves courtly 
relapsed into their former vice ; they vied with women in 
length of locks, and, wherever they were defective, put on 
false tresses ; forgetful, or rather ignorant, of the saying of 
the Apostle, ' If a man nurture his hair, it is a shame to 
him. 

It seems an extraordinary thing to hear of such 
effeminate tastes in the turbulent times in which 
our author wrote ; for it is clear from what he says 
that it must have been a prevalent fashion even 
after the death of Henry I., and during the civil 
war in Stephen's time. 

Of the reign of King Stephen we have two 
original narratives besides that given in the Historia 
Novella of Malmesbury. The first is an anonymous 
fragment entitled the Gesta Stephani, derived, un- 
fortunately, from one single manuscript in which 
some passages are obliterated and the end entirely 
lost. There is no doubt, however, that it is the 
work of a contemporary who was an eye-witness of 



&cft$ of jBfrfixm. 89 



some of the scenes he describes in it. The writer 
also appears to have been a churchman — some have 
supposed the king's confessor. It is not unreason- 
able, at least, as remarked by his editor, Dr. Sewell, 
to think that he was a Norman ; a friend, and 
perhaps a connection of the king. Sir Thomas 
Hardy, however, while agreeing that he was a 
foreigner, thinks that he lived either in Hereford- 
shire or Gloucestershire, as he notices those parts 
of the kingdom more frequently than others ; and 
if this conjecture be right, he could hardly have 
been the king's confessor. Although he keeps to 
the true order of events he never gives a date ; and 
though his style has been criticised as being rather 
florid and diffuse there is only one place in which 
he has been suspected of exaggerating. This is 
at the very beginning where he describes a state 
of anarchy and confusion to have arisen on the 
death of Henry I., in which even the brute creation 
is described as having shared. The bonds of 
government were relaxed, the ties even of relation- 
ship were disregarded, war and riot broke loose 
throughout the land. Even the wild animals 
formerly preserved in parks were let loose and were 
hunted freely by every one. " This, indeed," says 
the writer, " was a minor calamity not much to be 
complained of ; and yet it was wonderful how so 
many myriads of wild animals, which in large 
herds before plentifully stocked the country, sud- 
denly disappeared, so that out of this vast number 
scarcely two could now be found together. They 



<p lEatlg Chroniclers! of ISnglanti. 

seemed to be entirely extirpated, insomuch that it 
is reported a single bird v/as a rare sight, and a 
stag was nowhere to be seen." 

Unless this extermination of the beasts and birds 
be an exaggeration, it is hard to say what else there 
is in the author's picture of the time to which we 
should be specially on our guard against giving 
credit. The only reason given for distrust is that 
Henry I. died on the 1st December, 1135, and that 
Stephen immediately left Normandy and was 
crowned on the 22nd of the same month. But 
surely a vast deal of disorder may take place within 
the period of three weeks, and it is evident even 
from the narrative itself that the mere announce- 
ment of Stephen's coronation throughout the land 
did not suffice to restore tranquillity. It was one of 
the things to which he pledged himself at his coro- 
nation that he would do his utmost to pacify the 
kingdom, and according to our author he thereupon 
took up arms against the bands of robbers "who 
ravaged that part of the kingdom " (that is to say 
the southern part), and by successfully encounter- 
ing them "he made his name great at the very 
beginning of his reign." 

His success in obtaining the crown was greatly 
owing to his brother Henry of Blois, bishop of 
Winchester and papal legate, who received him 
before his coronation in his own cathedral city, 
spoken of by our author as the second city of the 
kingdom, and helped to put him in possession of 
the late king's hoarded wealth. But the archbishop 



&ctg of jfctq>i)$tt. 91 



of Canterbury refused to perform the rite of corona- 
tion until the new king's title was sufficiently 
cleared of objections : — 

" For the king, he argued, is chosen for the purpose of 
governing all, and that when elected he may enforce the 
rights of his government on all ; so then it is plain that all 
should make common agreement in confirming his election, 
and that it should be determined by common consent whether 
it shall be ratified or annulled. He added that king Henry 
in his lifetime had bound all the principal men of the realm 
by a most solemn oath not to acknowledge the title of any one 
after his own death but his daughter, who was married to the 
Count of Anjou, or, if he himself survived her, his daughter's 
heir. Therefore there was great presumption in endeavouring 
to set aside this engagement, the more especially as not only 
was king Henry's daughter living, but she was favoured in 
having heirs of her body. To this the king's partisans replied 
with confidence, ' We do not deny that king Henry's policy 
on the marriage of his daughter was wise, as it led to a firm 
and stable peace between the people of Normandy and Anjou, 
between whom there were frequent disturbances. With 
respect to the succession, that imperious king, whom no one 
could resist, with a voice of thunder compelled, rather than 
persuaded, the great men of the kingdom to take the oath of 
fealty ; for though he foresaw that an involuntary oath would 
not be considered binding, still he wished, like Ezekiel, to 
have peace in his days, and by the marriage of one woman 
create a bond of union between countless multitudes. We 
willingly admit that this thing was agreeable to him while he 
lived, but we say that he would not have been satisfied that 
it should be unalterable after his death ; for those who stood 
round him when he was at the last extremity, and listened to 
his true confession, heard him plainly express his repentance 
for the oath which he had enforced on his barons. Since, 
therefore, it is evident that an oath extracted by violence 
from any man cannot subject him to the charge of perjury, 



93 lEarlg ©ijromclerg of lEnglant). 

it is both allowable and acceptable that we should freely 
acknowledge for king him whom the city of London, the 
metropolis of the kingdom, received without opposition, and 
who founds his claims on his lawful right, through his mother, 
the late king's sister. We are also firmly convinced that by 
acknowledging him and supporting him with all our power, 
we shall confer the greatest benefit on the kingdom, which, 
now torn, distracted, and trodden down, will in the very crisis 
of its fate be restored to order, by the efforts of a man of 
firmness and valour, who being exalted by the power of his 
adherents and the wisdom of his brothers, whatever was 
wanting in himself would be fully supplied by their aid.'" 

This minute report of a debate in council suggests 
strongly either that the writer was actually present, 
or that he had very special means of information as 
to what took place. It is true, historians of all ages 
introduce occasionally into their works made-up 
harangues and speeches ; but in this case we have a 
set of arguments and counter-arguments which we 
have no reason to doubt were actually advanced 
on the one side and on the other, leading to an 
ultimate decision in favour of the coronation of 
Stephen. In substance, moreover, the proceedings 
of this council are confirmed by other authorities ; 
and ' the graphic touch about the impious king 
Henry I. and his voice of thunder has a value of its 
own not to be overlooked. We see, under any cir- 
cumstances, how slender were the guarantees by 
which the succession, even of the lineal heir, could 
be secured in those days, and yet, how important it 
was felt to be that the election of the new sovereign 
should not be ratified by the religious rite of con-.. 



ftcte of j&tepljat. 93 

secration without a full investigation of his preten- 
sions and an assurance that no past pledges should 
be violated. 

The archbishop anointed and consecrated 
Stephen, and almost all the great men of England 
then did homage to him, notwithstanding the oath 
they had taken to Maud in the lifetime of her 
father. Even her half-brother Robert, Earl of 
Gloucester, though he afterwards supported her 
cause so warmly, took the oath and was received 
into favour, and his submission was followed by 
that of almost all the rest of England. The new 
king, it would seem, began well. " In tranquillising 
the kingdom and consolidating its peace, he was 
courteous and obliging to all men ; he restored the 
exiles to their estates ; in conferring ecclesiastical 
dignities he was free from the sin of simony ; and 
justice was administered without bribe or reward. 
He treated with respect churchmen of all ages and 
ranks ; and so kind and gentle was his demeanour 
that, forgetful of his royal dignity, on many occa- 
sions he gave way, in others he put himself on an 
equality with, and sometimes even seemed to be 
inferior to, his subjects." . But the pacification of 
England proved to be no very easy matter. First, 
the Welsh were troublesome, and he sent out an 
ineffectual expedition against them. Then Baldwin 
de Rivers rose at Exeter ; but the king laid siege to 
the city, and after reducing it to the last extremities 
at length allowed the emaciated garrison, dying of 
thirst, to march out with arms and property and 



94 lEatlg ©jjromders of ISnglanti. 

take service with whatever other lord they pleased. 
Baldwin himself had meanwhile withdrawn into the 
Isle of Wight, which was a part of his territories, 
and fortified himself there in a castle, probably 
Carisbrooke, which he had stocked with an abundant 
supply of provisions. " But by the interposition of 
Providence," says our author, " the springs had been 
dried up by a sudden drought, and Baldwin and his 
adherents, embarking in a fresh struggle with the 
king, were utterly ruined." He was driven into 
. exile, and took refuge with Henry, count of Anjou, 
the son of the empress Maud. 

The narrative here begins to speak of the king's 
measures against Normandy, but owing to the 
mutilation of the manuscript the account of his 
recovery of that duchy is lost. The scene accord- 
ingly shifts to the siege of Bedford, which is held 
by Miles de Beauchamp against the king in 1 138, 
but is reduced by famine. Then comes an account 
of the irruption of the Scots, but another mutilation 
deprives us of this author's account of the battle of 
the Standard. The story is resumed with the 
rebellion at Bristol, under Earl Robert of Gloucester, 
and goes on to show how the king garrisoned Bath, 
and after abandoning the intention of besieging 
Bristol itself, reduced some other fortresses ; and 
once more the manuscript breaks off abruptly. It 
is worth noticing, however, at this part of the nar- 
rative, that our author gives brief descriptions both 
of Bristol and Bath, which are of considerable 
interest ; and what he says of the former city will 



^CctsS of j&tepfjen. 95 



enable us to realise the strength of Earl Robert's 
position : — 

" Bristol is the most opulent city of all those parts, as its 
shipping brings merchandise to it from the neighbouring 
coasts and from foreign parts. It is situated in the most 
fertile part of England, and its position is stronger than that 
of any other town. Like what we read of Brundusium, it 
stands where a tongue of land, extending between two rivers 
which wash it on both sides, forms a flat at the confluence 
of the rivers, on which the city is built. The tide flows fresh 
and strong from the sea every day and night, and draws back 
the waters of the river on both sides of the city, forming a 
basin in which a thousand ships can conveniently and safely 
ride, and so encompassing the circuit of the town that it may 
be said to float on the waters, and appears in every quarter 
to touch the river banks. On one side, where it lies more 
open to attack, the castle stands on a raised mound, fortified 
with a wall, and outworks and towers, and furnished with 
engines of various kinds to defend it against assaults." 

Our author next recounts the story of the breach 
between the king and the three bishops who had 
been the leading ministers of Henry I., and how the 
king laid hands on them and forced them to surren- 
der their castles. A period of anarchy and violence 
ensues, in the midst of which the Empress Maud, 
or, as this writer invariably calls her, the Countess 
of Anjou, lands with her brother Robert, Earl of 
Gloucester, at Arundel. Various rebellious barons 
are encouraged by the event ; and though the king 
meets the danger with great intrepidity, his success 
is only partial. While the king defeats the rebels 
in some quarters, rebel forces besiege the king's 
troops elsewhere, and capture garrisons. The 



9 5 lEarlg ©ftroniclerg of lEnglanD. 

bishop of Ely takes arms against the king, and 
attempts to hold against him the whole Isle of 
Ely, at that time considered an impregnable for- 
tress, as being accessible only by a narrow road 
through the water, defended by a strong castle. 
But one of the monks, as it was believed, played 
traitor to the bishop, and suggested to the king 
another mode by which the island might be entered. 
A bridge of boats was formed where the current 
seemed most slack ; and after the king's men had 
crossed the main stream by this bridge, they forded 
the adjoining marshes under the monk's guidance. 
The traitor received his reward. " We saw him 
afterwards," says our author, " thanks, not to St. 
Peter's key but to Simon's, admitted into the 
church and made abbot of Ramsey ; and we know 
that afterwards he was subject to much trouble 
and affliction, the Almighty justly punishing secret 
offences on account of his unlawful intrusion into 
the church." 

The king is described as continually moving 
about to meet his enemies, drawn at one time into 
Cornwall, at another back into Lincoln. Nor do 
his enemies constitute anything like a united 
party. Individual nobles take castles for their own 
benefit, and refuse to give them up to others, either 
for king or empress. At Lincoln the king is taken 
prisoner by Earl Robert, who carries him off to 
Bristol. Maud is proclaimed queen in London, 
but on her making exorbitant demands on the 
citizens a plot is formed against her, and she makes 



&ctg of jjtepfjen. 97 



a precipitate flight. Stephen's queen causes a 
reaction in his favour, and even gains over his wary 
and cautious brother, the bishop of Winchester ; 
but not trusting him entirely she seizes the city of 
Winchester herself, which is then besieged by 
the Earl of Gloucester, and othe rs, while the queen 
and the bishop bring men from all parts to harass 
the besiegers. " All England," says the writer, " was 
there in arms with a great conflux of foreigners." 
The struggle is a critical one, and the besiegers 
find it necessary to raise a fort at Wherwell, six 
miles off, a place where there is a nunnery. But 
while doing so they are attacked by the king's 
party, and driven into the church, which is deserted 
and set on fire. The king's enemies are forced to 
surrender, unconditionally, while the flames burst 
forth from the roof of the monastery, and the 
nuns, compelled to turn out for their lives, fill the 
air with shrieks and lamentations. The siege of 
Winchester is abandoned, the besiegers driven away 
in shameful rout, the earl of Gloucester taken 
prisoner, and the king once more set at liberty. 

Such is a brief outline of the contents of the 
first book of this very spirited narrative. In the 
second the story is carried down to the arrival of 
Henry, afterwards Heniy II., in England ; so that, 
but for the mutilation of the manuscript, this work 
would have contained a complete account of nearly 
the whole, or perhaps actually the whole reign of 
Stephen. The most interesting incident in the 
second part is the escape of Maud, when besieged 

ENG. il 



93 lEadg ©fjtomcUcg of lEnglanfc. 

at Oxford by the king, over the frozen Thames, 
while the country was white with snow. 

"What was very remarkable, and indeed truly miraculous, 
she crossed dryshod, and without wetting her garments, the 
very waters into which the king and his troops had plunged 
up to their neck on their advance to attack the city ; she 
passed too through the royal posts, while the silence of night 
was broken all around by the clang of trumpets, and the 
cries of the guard, without losing a single man of her escort, 
and observed only by one man of the king's troops who had 
been wrought with to favour her escape." 

For historical purposes, as Dr. Sewell very justly 
points out, the Historia Novella of William of 
Malmesbury should be read along with the Gesta 
Stephani, page by page. " Each," says Dr. Sewell, 
" reflects light on the other, and, what is still more 
extraordinary under such circumstances, each con- 
firms the other." The partisan of Stephen and the 
partisan of the Earl of Gloucester are at one on 
almost every point as to matters of fact. And to 
these two must be further added the account given 
of Stephen's reign by Henry of Huntingdon, a writer 
whose sympathies, like those of Malmesbury, are 
on the side of that king's enemies. Still there is 
on the whole a wonderful agreement as to facts ; 
and even the moral judgments pronounced by 
these different writers do not differ so greatly as 
we should be naturally led to expect. 

Henry of Huntingdon belongs properly to a 
different class of writers from those of whom we 
have been speaking ; for it would seem that he was 



P?*nrg of f^tmtmgfcon. 99 



not a monk at all, and if we were to adhere strictly 
to the subject of this chapter, he ought not to be 
noticed here. But of course we are treating 
generally of the historical literature of a period 
when there were few but monkish authors, and it 
is by no means certain that we have not already 
met with an exception in the author of the Gesta 
Stephani. In Huntingdon, however, the style itself 
almost seems to betray a man of a different class — 
a lover of liberty, not tied to strict rules of life, 
and not accustomed, perhaps, to rigid accuracy of 
thought, or of investigation. His easy, interesting, 
and fluent narrative, breaking out occasionally into 
poetry, differs certainly not a little in character, 
even from the lively pages of William of Malmes- 
bury. Yet it is equally characteristic of the new 
era and of the revival of letters which began under 
Henry Beauclerc. For with all his warmth of 
colouring he is a true historian, who seems to have 
weighed authorities in his own mind, moralises 
upon events, and draws his own conclusions. Im- 
pressed with a sense, that " there is nothing in this 
world more excellent than accurately to investigate 
and trace out the course of worldly affairs," he 
remarks in his dedication to Alexander, bishop of 
Lincoln — 

" History brings the past to view as if it were piesent, and 
enables us to judge of the future by picturing to ourselves the 
past. Besides, the knowledge of former events has this 
further preeminence, that it forms a main distinction between 
brutes and rational creatures. For brutes, whether they be 
men or beasts, neither know nor wish to know, whence they 

L.ofC. 



lEarlg ©ftronickrg of lEnglant). 



come, nor their own origin, nor the annals and revolutions 
of the country they inhabit. Of the two, I consider men in 
this brutal state to be the worst, because what is natural in 
the case of beasts, is the lot of men from their want of sense ; 
and what beasts could not acquire if they would, such men 
will not though they could." 

In such fashion does this author give utterance 
to the thoughts that were in him. Even when he 
descends from the abstract to the particular, the 
freedom with which he comments upon men and 
things is no less remarkable. He does not spare 
criticism even of friends and patrons. In regard 
to facts, however, he is generally careful, and 
though with a warm and imaginative nature he has 
perhaps laid himself open to the charge of exaggera- 
tion here and there, it is impossible to question his 
general fidelity. Of his judgment, moreover, as an 
historian, we are led to think highly from his dis- 
criminating use of Bede and the Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle, the authorities on which he mainly de- 
pended for the earlier portion of his history. On 
the whole, he gives none but the really important 
facts, omitting nearly all the miraculous legends and 
minor incidents, with which the pages of the former 
historian abound. At the same time it must be 
acknowledged that he amplifies very considerably 
on his predecessors, and if he is not following in 
some places the guidance of tradition or of 
authorities not now extant he must certainly be 
credited with some use of the inventive faculty. 
His value, however, as an historian, is of course 



I^enrg of ^untmg&on. 101 

chiefly in relation to his own period. But it is time 
that we should say something of the man himself, 
and his surroundings. 

Henry of Huntingdon was the son of Nicholas, 
a distinguished ecclesiastic and probably a dignitary 
of the church at Lincoln. In England the celibacy 
of the clergy was not at that time very rigidly 
insisted on, and Henry himself avows his origin 
without any show of sensitiveness on the subject. 
The Roman custom, however, was then extending 
itself, and in a synod held at London in 1 102 the 
clergy were for the first time forbidden to live with 
wives. Henry of Huntingdon himself remarks on 
the novelty of the prohibition, and observes that 
" some saw danger in a strictness which, requiring 
a continence above their strength, might lead them 
to disgrace their Christian profession." The ordi- 
nance was enacted just eight years before his 
father's death, when he himself was probably past 
boyhood. There is some reason for supposing that 
his father was his predecessor in the archdeaconry 
of Huntingdon, which was conferred upon him by 
Bishop Bloet, on the death of an archdeacon 
Nicholas ; about which time, as the author tells us, 
Cambridgeshire was separated from the see of 
Lincoln, and attached to the new bishopric of Ely. 
Now the see of Ely was erected in 1 109, and Henry 
of Huntingdon tells us that his father died in 11 10, 
so that the expression " about the time " would be 
correct if he succeeded his father Nicholas. 

As a child, he was placed for his education in 



'Eatlg ©ijrontcktg of lEngtanD. 



the family of Robert Bloet, Bishop of Lincoln, of 
whose magnificent household he gives a lively 
picture in his "Letter to Walter," an old friend of 
his youth, written when both he and Walter were 
advanced in years. " I saw," he writes, " his retinue 
of gallant knights and noble youths, his horses of 
price, his vessels of gold or of silver gilt, the 
splendid array of his plate, the gorgeousness of his 
servitors, the fine linen and purple robes, and I 
thought within myself that nothing could be more 
blissful. When, moreover, all the world, even those 
who had learnt in the schools the emptiness of such 
things, were obsequious to him, and he was looked 
up to as the father and lord of all, it was no wonder 
that he valued highly his worldly advantages. If 
at that time any one had told me that this splendour 
which we all admired ought to be held in contempt, 
with what face, in what temper, should I have heard 
it ? I should have thought him more insensate 
than Orestes, more querulous than Thersites. It 
appeared to me that nothing could exceed happiness 
so exalted. But when I became a man, and heard 
the scurrilous language which was addressed to 
him, I felt that I should have fainted if it had been 
used to me, who had nothing, in such a presence. 
Then I began to value less what I had before so 
highly esteemed." 

Henry appears to have remained in the bishop's 
household till he reached manhood, and, it is said, 
received from him, as his first preferment, a canonry 
at Lincoln. He speaks, in one place, of a certain 



?^cnrg of ?^untingDon. 103 

Albinus of Anjou as his " master," who, we may- 
presume, directed his studies in the bishop's house- 
hold. It is, probably, the same person whom he 
mentions again as " Aldwine, my own master, who 
was Abbot of Ramsey." During those years he 
composed several books of epigrams, satires, sacred 
hymns, and love poems, which he afterwards pub- 
lished with his more important works. His own 
talents, aided, perhaps, by the regard felt for his 
father's memory, marked him out for early promo- 
tion ; for he could not have been much over thirty 
years old when he received the archdeaconry. 

He continued in equal favour with Alexander de 
Blois, the successor of Bishop Bloet in the see of 
Lincoln, at whose request he undertook his History 
of the English, and to whom he dedicated the work. 
The extraordinary liberality of this prelate, when he 
twice visited Rome, gained for him there the title 
of " the Magnificent." Henry is said to have visited 
Rome in his company, and Mr. Forester, to whose 
biographical preface to Henry of Huntingdon we 
are indebted for the substance of these remarks, 
thinks he probably did so on both the occasions 
when Bishop Alexander went thither. These were 
in the years 1125 and 1 144. On the other hand, 
Sir Thomas Hardy finds that he accompanied Arch- 
bishop Theobald, of Canterbury, to Rome, in 11 39, 
and on his way thither visited Bee, in Normandy, 
where he first saw in the monastery the British 
History of Geoffrey of Monmouth, of which work 
he made an abridgment, and dedicated it to his 



io4 lEarlg ©Dromclerg of lEnglanfc. 



friend Warin. We shall have something to say of 
this famous work hereafter. 

Mr. Forester considers that Henry of Hunting- 
don's History of the English was probably com- 
menced after Bishop Alexander's return from his 
first journey. The first edition only came down to 
the death of Henry I., before which time the book 
really contains very little original matter. Thirteen 
years later he continued it to the thirteenth year 
of Stephen's reign ; and after the death of Stephen 
he added another continuation to the accession of 
Henry II. By that time he was probably about 
seventy years old, and it may be presumed that he 
did not live much longer ; for one manuscript of 
the history ends, just after the. death of Stephen, 
with the words, " The accession of a new king de- 
mands a new book ; " but no further continuation, 
relating to the reign of Henry II., is known to 
exist. 

Among the passages in Huntingdon's account of 
Stephen's reign, which are specially valuable, may 
be noticed his description of the battle of the 
Standard, the details of which are not given so fully 
by any other strictly contemporary writer. But 
perhaps some of the more minute touches will give 
a better notion of the interest of this veiy impartial 
critic's remarks on the events of his own time. 
The age, apparently, was beginning to despise a 
number of superstitions, and our author rather 
"ommends "the great resolution of King Stephen," 
who wore his crown at Lincoln during- the season 



I^cnrg of l^unttngticn. 



of Christmas. Although William the Conqueror 
had done so at Gloucester, there seems to have been 
some kind of prejudice against a king appearing 
crowned at that particular time of year; but Stephen 
was determined to show that he despised the feel- 
ing, whatever it may have been, that to do so was 
either irreverent or unlucky. At the same time, 
our author relates, as facts, certain omens which 
occurred to King Stephen just before the battle of 
Lincoln ; but as they appear to have been reported 
to him by his friend, Bishop Alexander, who was 
present on the occasion, I think there is no good 
reason to doubt that they did take place as related. 
It was the morning of Candlemas Day, and Stephen 
heard mass with great devotion, but sorely troubled 
in mind, and anxious about the issue of the impend- 
ing conflict. As he offered the usual mass taper to 
the bishop, "it broke, betokening the rupture of 
the kings. The pix also, which contained Christ's 
body, snapped its fastening, and fell on the altar 
while the bishop was celebrating — a sign of the 
king's fall from power." The former incident is 
confirmed by the independent authority of the 
writer of the Gesta Stephani, and both occurrences 
are natural enough results of the great anxiety and 
trepidation which must have possessed both king 
and bishop. 

As contemporary historians, the writers of whom 
we have just been speaking are the most interesting 
of the age to which they belonged. In them we 
meet with close and minute descriptions of what 



io6 lEarlg ©jjronickrg of lEnglanfc. 

was taking place at the very time they wrote. A 
much more voluminous historian was Ordericus 
Vitalis, who wrote an elaborate work on the history 
of Normandy and England, preceded by a general 
history of Christendom, from the time of our Lord 
to his own day. The order of this work, however, 
is rather confused, the thirteen books, of which it 
is composed, having been written at different times, 
and not even consecutively, as they now stand. 
Moreover, though an Englishman born, and an 
ardent lover of his native land, he was sent abroad 
in boyhood by his father, and spent the greater 
part of his life in the Abbey of Ouche, in Normandy, 
where he received his education. He must, how- 
ever, have devoted a large part of his life to his- 
torical investigation, and he paid several visits to 
England for the purpose of collecting historical 
materials. Still, his account of English affairs is, 
on the whole, subordinate to the history of Nor- 
mandy, and especially to ecclesiastical history, 
which was his main object. Nevertheless, his work 
is remarkably full of interest, as regards both 
countries, and space alone forbids us to do it justice. 
We must, therefore, content ourselves with saying 
that the narrative is throughout wonderfully clear 
and vivid, and is, perhaps, not the less interesting 
for being a little discursive in style. The portraits 
drawn of William the Conqueror, and of his sons, 
are also wonderfully lifelike. Particularly striking 
is what he says of that extraordinary character, 
Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy — a very 



©rOracug IXttalfe. 107 



Esau for improvidence, who first sold a large part 
of his birthright to his younger brother, and then 
lost the remainder by utter carelessness and shame- 
ful maladministration. It seems this strange pro- 
digal, even when nominally reigning over Normandy, 
so wasted his means that he absolutely sometimes 
lay in bed till midday for want of clothes, of which 
he was robbed by the profligate associates he 
gathered round him. 

It is, doubtless, a great defect in this work that 
so little attention is paid by the author to chrono- 
logy, or, indeed, to order, or systematic arrange- 
ment of any kind. The work seems to have grown 
upon the author while he was writing, and with 
new information he reverted to an old subject with- 
out caring to digest what he had already written 
into a better order. But if such a mode of treat- 
ment destroys to a great extent the claim of 
Ordericus to be considered a systematic historian, 
he is, perhaps, even the more attractive from the 
very fact that he has not bestowed too much thought 
on the art with which he tells his story. A chapter 
is even cut short in consequence of the physical 
discomfort under which the author laboured when 
he was writing it, and the further treatment of the 
subject is postponed to another day. Thus, after 
a brief account of the disputes between Robert of 
Normandy and his brothers, William Rufus and 
Henry, he writes as follows : — 

" The calamities which threaten the sons of earth are end- 
less, and if they were all carefully committed to writing would 



ioS ^Eatlg ©JnfonicIerjJ of lEnglant. 

fill large volumes. It is now winter, and I am suffering from 
the severity of the cold, and propose to allow myself some 
respite for other occupations, and, fatigued with my work, 
shall here bring the present book to a close. When the re- 
turning spring brings with it serener skies I will resume in 
the sequel my narrative of matters which I have hitherto 
treated cursorily, or which still remain to be told, and, by 
God's help, employ my faithful pen in elucidating the causes 
of peace and war among my countrymen." 




CHAPTER III. 



NEW MONASTIC ORDERS — THE CRUSADES. 



Religious revival in Europe — New orders of monks practising aus- 
terity — The Cluniacs — Carthusians — Cistercians — St. Bernard — 
His love of nature — Richard of Devizes — Massacre of the 
Jews at Richard I.'s coronation — Alleged crucifixion of a boy by 
the Jews of Winchester — Crusade of Richard I., and state of the 
kingdom in his absence — Expulsion of the monks of Coventry 
by Bishop Hugh de Nonant — Joceline of Brakelond's account 
of the monastery of St. Edmundsbury under Abbot Sampson — 
Description of the abbot — Disputes between the monastery and 
the burgesses — Privileges claimed against the archbishop — 
Abbot Sampson's journey to Rome — He holds his own against 
the king — Customs and privileges of the monastery — Dispute 
with the monks of Ely. 

If English monasticism, as we have seen, derived 
from the first a very great impulse from the 
Norman Conquest, it was not long before new in- 
fluences carried over from the continent came to 
increase and continue the movement. The same 
religious zeal which in one form aroused all Europe 
and called the martial spirits of the age to rescue 
Jerusalem from the hands of Pagans spoke less 
obtrusively to many a quiet soul urging him to a 
not less arduous warfare, whose aim was to subdue 



lEarlg ©ijronklerg of lEnglantJ. 



the flesh by fasting and prayer in the company of 
brethren endowed with a kindred zeal. 

The monasteries of England in early times do 
not appear to have been placed under any common 
rule or order. It is probable that their discipline 
was most effective in the north, where monasticism, 
planted originally by Irish and Scottish mission- 
aries, had been almost the only means of dissemin- 
ating Christianity. In the south there was a strong 
tendency to convert monastic settlements into 
colleges of secular clergy. St. Dunstan introduced 
the rule of St. Benedict, with modifications adapted 
to the English climate and mode of life ; but his 
work was very nearly overthrown even during his 
own lifetime. The Benedictine rule, however, was 
finally established, and the Normans at their 
coming found it universally acknowledged. A new 
rule, however, does not of itself beget the zeal to 
promote its own observance ; and discipline had 
greatly relaxed before the conquest, when Lanfranc 
found it necessary to institute another reformation. 

But now there rose up on the continent of 
Europe new forms of religious life, which, after a 
time found their way into England also. New 
orders, all framed in the same spirit, invited men 
to a life of labour and austerity, more truly in 
accordance, as it was supposed, with the original 
design of St. Benedict ; and monasteries began to 
spring up, bearing such names as Cluniac, Cister- 
cian, Carthusian, and the like, indicative of the 
different forms of this religious revival. 



Jicfo Jftonagtic (QttotH, 



It was far from true, however, that the sentiment 
which gave birth to these new institutions was that 
of the founder of the Benedictine rule. St. Bene- 
dict intended his followers to labour hard, but not 
to subject their bodies to an unnatural strain. He 
allowed his monks a plentiful diet, restricted only 
in quality and in the amount of animal food, with 
a large discretion to the head of every monastery 
to allow special indulgences even in that. He 
prescribed no distinctive clothing, but left the vest- 
ments to be regulated by the abbot according to 
the climate and the custom of the country. Not 
so the new orders which now began to be promul- 
gated. Scanty meals, long hours of labour, and a 
strict rule of dress were essential features of their 
institution. 

Of all these movements France (or at least the 
region that we call France nowadays) was the 
common parent. A warm but not relaxing climate 
enabled zealous reformers to institute austerities 
till then unknown and not easily to be maintained 
in other regions. And France was assuredly in 
this age the religious centre of Christendom. In it 
was held the great council that first summoned 
Europe to arms against the infidels, and no less 
than four of the French kings were engaged per- 
sonally in the Crusades. Whatever movement 
stirred the thoughts of men in matters of religion, 
whether it tended to heresy as in the case of the 
Albigenses, or to new forms of observance in con- 
nection with the Church Catholic, was sure at this 
time to take its rise in France. 



3Earlg ©Ijromckrg of Hsnglant). 



The oldest of these orders was the Cluniac, 
which began in Burgundy in the beginning of the 
tenth century, but was not introduced into England 
till eleven years after the Conquest. It arose simply 
from the efforts of successive Abbots of Clugny to 
correct what was thought remiss in the keeping 
of St. Benedict's rule. But as regards England 
this order is of comparatively little importance. 
The number of priories and cells in connection with 
it was ultimately twenty-seven ; but they were all 
subject to foreign houses, they had more French 
than English inmates, their priors were elected by 
foreigners, and almost every point in their govern- 
ment was submitted to the decision of the foreign 
abbots, who likewise were their visitors. 

The Carthusians, though they had even fewer 
houses in England, were of somewhat greater conse- 
quence. Instituted about the year 1080, they were 
first introduced into this country exactly a cen- 
tury later. St. Bruno, their founder, had chosen an 
abode for them at the Grande Chartreuse, in Dau- 
phine, an almost inaccessible spot, high up among 
the mountains, surrounded by cataracts, and fearful 
precipices, now covered with thick forests. In this 
truly awful seclusion their severely self-denying 
rule forbade them even to eat flesh at all, and 
compelled them to fast once a week on bread, 
water, and salt, for a whole day. They wore a hair 
shirt next the skin, and were only once a week 
indulged in a walk round the grounds of the mon- 
astery ; for beyond the precincts of his own house 



i&efo #tonagttc ©rberg. 113 

no monk of this order was ever permitted to go, 
except only the prior or proctor of the monastery, 
and even these only on the necessary affairs of the 
house itself. 

The monks of this order wore a white habit 
covered by a black cloak. Only nine Carthusian 
houses were ever erected in England, the most 
famous of which — the well-known Charterhouse of 
London — was not founded till the end of Edward 
the Third's reign. The English name Charterhouse 
was a corruption of the French Chartreuse, and 
was applied to all the monasteries of this order. 

A more important, and far more numerous order 
was that of the Cistercians, or White Monks, so 
called from the white cassocks which they habitu- 
ally wore, in marked opposition to the black habits 
of the older orders. The parent house of this 
order was at Cistertium or Citeaux in Burgundy, 
founded in 1098, by one Robert, formerly abbot of 
Moleme. But the order attained its fullest develop- 
ment under St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux. This 
wonderful enthusiast, when only twenty-two years 
old, had knocked for admittance at the door of 
Citeaux monastery, along with some thirty com- 
panions, whom the power of his preaching had 
induced to seek a religious life. The attractions 
of Citeaux at that time, were, that the monks ate 
but one meal a day, and that only twelve hours 
after rising from their hard beds ; that they worked 
hard in the fields, yet never tasted animal food, 
not even fish, grease, or eggs ; and that milk was 
ENG. I 



ii4 lEarlg ©fjrontclcrg of lEnglanD. 



allowed them only as an occasional luxury. In 
this hard warfare with the flesh they had at first 
been cheered by the favour of the great. Two dukes 
of Burgundy had successively patronized them, 
and attended their services on great festivals. But 
the abbot who now reigned — an Englishman, by 
name Stephen Harding — considering the visits 
of great men with their retinues as a discourage- 
ment to devotion, had made it known that he 
declined to receive them in future ; so the monks 
were left to practice their austerities unregarded by 
the world, except so far as a similar spirit could 
prompt men like St. Bernard and his friends to 
seek them out. 

And truly, but for this accession of new zeal the 
little community stood in danger of gradually 
perishing off the face of the earth ; for the abbot 
had taken what, humanly speaking, might be con- 
sidered the best means to repel new-comers. St. 
Bernard, however, was a fountain of enthusiasm in 
himself. So earnestly had he preached, even 
before coming to Citeaux, the advantages of a 
monastic life, that wives and mothers had much 
ado to prevent their families being broken up by 
the influence of the young man's eloquence. And 
now, having taken up his abode within that mon- 
astery with thirty other novices, the fame of the 
place spread so rapidly, and so many applicants 
for admission followed his example, that Citeaux 
could not contain them all. Two detachments had 
to be sent off successively under the guidance of 



4fl«&> Jftomxsitic ©rUcrs. 



older monks to found new monasteries elsewhere ; 
and only two years after St. Bernard's arrival the 
formation of a third colony had become absolutely 
necessary. Abbot Stephen found no one so fit 
to take the rule of this new community as this 
young man of twenty-four ; and Bernard was sent 
with twelve associates to found another monastery 
in the valley of Clairvaux, not far from Chaumont. 
There in the midst of dense and lonely woods the 
little fellowship built with their own hands a rude 
fabric, preserved for centuries after by the venera- 
tion of St. Bernard's followers, in the state in which 
he left it. It consisted of a chapel, dormitory, and 
refectory, all under a single roof, the dormitory 
being, in fact, a loft, reached by a ladder, over the 
refectory. There was no floor but the bare earth ; 
the windows were scarcely broader than a man's 
hand ; the abbot's cell, at the top of the attic, was 
a chamber in which no one could even sit upright. 

To St. Bernard self-denial was a luxury ; and it 
was certainly owing to the example of his energy 
and fervour that the order soon attained its world- 
wide popularity. In 1 129 the first Cistercian house 
in this country was established at Waverley, in 
Surrey. Two years later Tintern was founded on 
the Wye, in Monmouthshire ; and in a very few 
years after, Rievalle, Furness, Kirkstall, Fountains, 
and a large number of others. The number of 
houses of this order in England ultimately reached 
one hundred and one. Their remains exist at this 
day, the most interesting and the most beautiful 



13 6 lEarlg ©Ijrontckrg of lEnglant) 

of all monastic ruins. It is not merely the grace and 
lightness of the architecture that distinguish their 
roofless fabrics above all others. The situation 
and scenery around are generally more attractive. 
Who is not lost in wonder at the loveliness of 
Tintern in the midst of its charming valley, its 
unglazed windows serving as framework to the 
most exquisite of natural pictures ? Who has not 
felt the fascination of Melrose to be enhanced by 
the beauties of the Tweed ? The very names of 
Furness, Kirkstall, Fountains, recall images of 
natural scenery no less than of romantic ruins. 
Rarely, indeed, does any one visit a Cistercian 
abbey without being struck by the situation and 
surroundings, as well as by the picturesque remains 
themselves. 

Nor is this a mere accident of fate. The love 
of nature was strong in St. Bernard, and he com- 
municated it to his followers. " Believe me," he 
said to one of his pupils in a passage which Shak- 
speare may almost be thought to have had in his 
mind at one time, " you will find something far 
greater in the woods than you will in books. 
Stones and .trees will teach you that which you 
will never learn from masters. Think you not you 
can suck honey from the rock, and oil from the 
flinty rock ? Do not the mountains drop sweet- 
ness, the hills run with milk and honey, and the 
valleys stand thick with corn ? " By this teaching 
the Cistercians v/ere encouraged to take up their 
abodes in solitary places far away from the haunts 



iBUfo J&onagttc ©rtorg. 117 

of men. The old Benedictine monasteries had 
generally been built just outside the walls of towns, 
or had gathered towns about them ; but the 
Cistercians were dependent on grants of land in 
remote districts where human labour had not yet 
developed the resources of the soil. To this day, 
the vicinity of a Cistercian monastery is generally 
somewhat secluded, though rich and beautiful with 
a cultivation which the monks were the first to 
introduce. 

The love of nature in St. Bernard was not com- 
bined with a love of art or literature. Against 
these things he rather set his face, as out of keep- 
ing with the work his followers had to do. The 
magnificent fabrics of the order all belong to the 
succeeding age, when prosperity had brought with 
it tastes and sentiments rather at variance with 
those in which the order originated. The main 
object which it was sought to enforce was purity. 
All their monasteries were dedicated to the Virgin 
Mary. No meretricious ornaments, no rich paintings, 
or stained glass, or sculptures were to allure the 
eye. Nor was it desirable to form extensive 
libraries ; the work of the Cistercians was not to 
be in the cloister or the scriptorium, but in the 
fields. 

Early in their history, however, their popularity 
began to decline. Slenderly endowed at first 
with lands which had . not yet been turned to 
good account, it was only by the exercise of the 
strictest parsimony that they could live and keep 



1 1 8 lEarlg ©Ijronickrg of lEnglanl). 

up hospitality. This made them a little more 
eager than was becoming in soliciting new endow- 
ments. " None were more greedy," says Mr. 
Brewer, "in adding farm to farm ; none less scru- 
pulous in obtaining grants of land from wealthy 
patrons ; and, what was far worse, in appropriating 
the tithes and endowments of parish churches, and 
pulling down the sacred edifices to suit their own 
interests." It was in vain that they attempted to 
justify acts like these by a hospitality to strangers, 
which contrasted strangely with their own abste- 
mious life. The greed of the Cistercians became a 
byword ; and as various causes besides contributed 
to a relaxation of discipline, they became the mark 
of bitter satire. 

These were the principal orders of monks. But 
it was not only monks, in the proper sense of the 
word, that began at this time to adopt new rules 
of life. The monks were laymen ; but the clergy 
also began to form themselves into orders, and to 
live together in monasteries. Even the men of 
war had their military orders, and formed commu- 
nities by themselves after the manner of the monks. 
It is not necessary, however, to do more than men- 
tion the names of the Augustinian and Premonstra- 
tensian Canons, as examples of the former class ; 
and of the two great military orders, the Knights 
Templars and the Knights of St. John of Jeru- 
salem, otherwise called the Knights Hospitallers. 
These latter of course originated in the days of 
the Crusades. The Augaistinian Canons were 



£leto J&onagtic ©rticrg. 119 



founded just before, but even they did not come 
to England till the reign of Henry I, 

Thus it will be seen that for more than a century- 
after the Conquest the religious life of Europe and 
of England was continually seeking new forms of 
manifestation. The fact has left its mark upon 
the literature of the time, but perhaps indirectly 
quite as much as otherwise. For the new orders 
generally were not literary, certainly not so much 
so, on the whole, as their predecessors, the Bene- 
dictines. The great monasteries of St. Alban's, Dur- 
ham, and Croyland, long after the rise of these new 
orders, had their separate schools of historians ; 
nor was William of Malmesbury without successors, 
although anonymous ones, in his own house. No 
such continuous writing of history is found to have 
occupied the inmates of smaller and more modern 
establishments. The very severities they practised 
— among other things the revival of the old mo- 
nastic rule of daily manual labour in the fields — 
were unfavourable to literary activity. The old 
monasteries, too, remained the great centres "of 
intelligence, and had better opportunities of col- 
lecting information, in the first instance, than the 
men who occupied Cistercian or Carthusian cells. 
Nevertheless, even the Cistercians made some con- 
tributions to historical literature ; and the very 
interesting chronicle of Richard of Devizes, though 
not actually the work of a Carthusian, may almost 
be considered as an offspring of Carthusian zeal. 

This writer was, as a matter of fact, only a monk 



lEarlg ©jjrcntcleriS of lEnglanti. 



of the old cathedral priory of St. Swithin's, Win- 
chester, which, like other foundations of the same 
kind, was of the Benedictine Order. But Robert, 
prior of St. Swithin's, had caught the enthusiasm 
of the times, and, giving up his priory at Win- 
chester, had joined himself to the newly established 
Charterhouse at Witham, in Somersetshire. It 
was but ten years since this, the parent house of 
the Carthusian order in England, had been founded 
by virtue of a grant from Henry II., and great 
was the anxiety of religious persons to be assured 
of the success of the experiment. After the re- 
tirement of Prior Robert from Winchester, three 
monks of his old monastery went to visit him at 
Witham ; and among the three was Richard of 
Devizes. The visit inspired him with an ardent 
wish to join the new community himself, and 
having arrived at Witham, he would have stayed 
there but for the persuasions of his two brother 
monks, who insisted on his return. " I came," he 
said, " and oh that I had come alone ! I went 
thither, making the third, and those that were with 
me were the cause of my return. My desire dis- 
pleased them, and they caused my fervour, I will not 
say my error, to grow cold. I saw in your establish- 
ment that which I had not believed, and I could 
not sufficiently admire. In each of your cells there 
is one door, according to rule, which you are per- 
mitted to open at pleasure ; but to go out by it is 
not permitted, except so much as that one foot 
should always remain in the cell within the thres- 



Mtcijarb of Debt^g. 



hold. A brother may step out with one foot, which- 
ever he pleases, so long as the other remains in the 
cell. A great and solemn oath is to be taken that 
the doors should be kept open, by which it is not 
permitted to enter or depart." 

These words are addressed by our author to his 
former prior in dedicating to him a history of the 
reign of Richard I., undertaken in obedience to his 
request. For though Prior Robert had withdrawn 
more completely from the world, he still had his 
eye upon it, and took the strongest possible interest 
in what was doing in it. Indeed, this fact seems 
to have struck Richard of Devizes as not a little 
noteworthy, both in him and in the brethren at 
Witham generally. " I cannot but admire," he 
observes, "that living to yourselves apart out of 
society, and singly, you understand all the great 
things achieved in the world as they happen, and 
even sometimes you know them prior to their being 
accomplished." But who could be so utter a re- 
cluse as to fail to take an interest in the events of 
Cceur de Lion's reign ? Even at home there was 
a great revolution, " turning squares into circles," 
as our author expresses it ; while abroad there was 
the brilliant expedition of the crusading king, rich 
in actions, which have all the charms of romance 
even to the present day. 

Richard of Devizes seems to have been asked 
by his old prior to include in his history some 
account of the family troubles of King Henry II., 
and the dissensions between him and his sons ; but 



lEarlp Chronicler* of lEnglantJ. 



he preferred to leave these great subjects to other 
pens. " My narrative," he says, " serves only for 
the living." He accordingly begins it with the 
Coronation of Richard I. at Westminster. The 
very first paragraph, which is painfully characteristic 
of the spirit of the times, is perhaps the least agree- 
able to read in the whole work : — 

" Now, in the year of our Lord's Incarnation, 1 189, Richard, 
the son of King Henry II., by Eleanor, brother of Henry 
III.,* was consecrated king of the English by Baldwin, 
Archbishop of Canterbury, at Westminster, on the third of 
the runes of September (3 Sept,). On the very day of the 
coronation, about that solemn hour in which the Son was 
immolated to the Father, they began, in the city of London, 
to immolate the Jews to their father, the devil, and so long 
was the duration of this famous mystery that the holocaust 
could scarcely be completed on the second day. The other 
cities and towns of the kingdom emulated the faith of the 
Londoners, and with a like devotion despatched their blood- 
suckers with blood to hell. Something, although unequally, 
was at that time prepared against these abandoned ones 
everywhere throughout the realm. Winchester alone spared 
its vermin. The people there are prudent and circumspect, 
and the city, always acting mildly, has never done anything 
over speedily ; fearing nothing more than to repent, it weighs 
the issue of things before the commencement. Being un- 
prepared, it was unwilling at its own peril to cast up violently 
through the parts the indigestion by which it was oppressed, 
and it was careful for its own bowels, in the mean time 
modestly concealing its uneasiness, until it may be possible, 
at a convenient time for cure, to cast out the whole cause of 
the disease at once, and once for all." 

* Henry, the eldest son of Henry II., who died before his father, 
having been crowned as king during his father's lifetime, is frequently 
styled Henry III. in the early chronicles. 



l&trijart) of 3Bebiie$. 123 

That a Christian monk, anxious to find a rule 
of life which should most effectually separate him 
from the wickedness of the world, could have per- 
mitted himself to write in such a fashion of a whole- 
sale massacre of the Jews, is a fact full of shame 
and sorrow to all real lovers of religion. But as 
even the most devoted of our Lord's first followers 
" knew not what spirit they were of," when they 
thought themselves most zealous, so we must expect 
to find it will be to the end of time. One age 
may be more violent ; another, born under happier 
influences, may be more gentle ; but as times of 
trial arise there will be a continual danger even 
among the most devout, of mistaking the spirit of 
persecution for true devotion to the Cross. In the 
present case it is not altogether difficult to under- 
stand the popular indignation. The Jews, as it 
would appear from the statements of other authori- 
ties, had been a little too obtrusive at the time of 
the coronation. And what had the enemies of the 
faith to do with such a solemnity ? Here was a 
king sworn before coming to the crown to take up 
arms against the infidels of the East — a glorious 
and unheard-of example ; and the infidels within 
his own kingdom dared to press into his presence, 
even at the sacred rite of inauguration. They too, 
who, with their extortions had been turning the 
holy cause to their own account in filthy lucre — 
who had been lending money at enormous interest 
to those who wanted it to equip them for the Holy 
Land. How could any one bespeak mercy for 
such caitiffs ? 



124 l&arlg ©tjrcmtclers of lEnglanD, 

Richard of Devizes, at least, could not. It is 
more than doubtful whether he admires what he 
calls the prudence and foresight of his own city 
of Winchester, in never joining in these out- 
bursts of popular fury. Elsewhere he tells us 
that the Winchester Jews rewarded the clemency 
of the inhabitants by murdering a boy there. The 
story will strike the ordinary reader as a mare's 
nest ; but there is much in the way in which it is 
told well worthy of observation, and some inci- 
dental description of localities in England which is 
exceedingly curious. 

It was a common opinion, at this time, that the 
Jews occasionally crucified Christian children ; and 
of course this belief lent additional vehemence to 
the persecution which from time to time was 
directed against them. It was well for this unfor- 
tunate race that however little sympathy they 
met with from any class of Christians, they at least 
had made themselves useful to the rulers of the 
world, and casually received some slight degree of 
protection in consequence. It is curious that our 
author, after describing the great massacre of the 
Jews at Richard's coronation, goes on to relate two 
or three trivial accidents that occurred the same 
day as so ominous of misfortune during the reign, 
that men could only speak of them with bated 
breath. The massacre itself, it would seem, led to 
no such sinister forebodings. 

Neither was any cause of apprehension discovered 
in Richard's abandonment of his own kingdom, 



&id)ar& of 39ebtj«5, 125 

and of his duties as king, for an object of quite a 
different character. The fact, on the contrary, 
seemed in the highest degree commendable. "A 
king," says this writer, "worthy of the name of 
king, who, in the first year of his reign, left the 
kingdom of England for Christ, scarcely otherwise 
than if he had departed never to return. So great 
was the devotion of the man, so hastily, so quickly, 
and so speedily did he run, yea fly, to avenge the 
wrongs of Christ ! " Richard, however, took some 
pains, though more for the sake of his expedition 
than of his subjects, to leave matters in a satisfac- 
tory condition at his departure. Having received 
power from the Pope to withdraw the cross from 
any of his subjects who had taken the vow, whom 
he might find necessary for the government of his 
kingdom, he appointed Hugh de Pusac or Pudsey, 
bishop of Durham, chief justice of the whole king- 
dom, and obtained from him ten thousand pounds 
of silver as the price of his creation as earl of 
Northumberland. It was the jest of the day, this 
making a young earl, as it was said, out of an old 
bishop, to the king's profit. Sheriffs were deprived 
of their offices on being accused of any malversa- 
tion, and were glad to compound for pardon by 
enormous gifts. Whoever found his money a burden 
to him was relieved with the greatest possible faci- 
lity ; and when an old acquaintance rallied the king 
on his mode of raising supplies, he replied, " I would 
sell London if I could find a chapman." 

However little devotion this shows to the interests 



i26 Icnrlg CTfiromtlerg of lEnglant). 

of his kingdom, the king was undoubtedly politic 
as regards the actual object that he had in view. 
He was equally wise in his selection of the man 
who was to bear the chief responsibility of affairs 
at home in his absence. William de Longchamp, 
whom he himself had appointed bishop of Ely, was 
his chancellor, and was indeed a faithful servant. 
But his devotion to his master's interests did not 
help to make him popular; and notwithstanding 
our author's great admiration of the king, he gives 
his minister a very unpleasant character : — 

" William, bishop of Ely, the king's chancellor, by nature 
a second Jacob, although he did not wrestle with the angel, 
a goodly person, making up in mind for his shortness in 
stature, secure for his master's love, and presuming on his 
favour because all power was, is, and will be, impatient of a 
partner, expelled Hugh de Pusac from the Exchequer, and 
scarcely leaving him even his sword with which he had been 
invested as a knight by the king's hand, after a short time 
deprived him of the honour of his earldom also. And lest 
the bishop of Durham alone should bewail his misfortunes, 
the villain, who was now more cruel than any wild beast, and 
spared nobody, fell like a pest upon the bishop of Winchester 
also. The custody of the castles and county is taken away 
from him, nor is he even permitted to enjoy his own patri- 
mony. The kingdom is disturbed, and the discontented are 
charged with disaffection to the king. Everybody crosses the 
sea to importune the king against the tyrant ; but he having 
crossed first of all, briefly related before the king a partial 
account of his entire proceeding and expulsion ; by whom 
also he was fully instructed in all things to be done. He 
thus foiled the adverse wishes of his rivals, and was on his 
return before those who assailed him could obtain admission 
to the king's presence. So he returns to the English not less 



i&tcfjarfc of 3Btbiie$. 1 2 7 



powerful and prosperous than one who has accomplished all 
things whatsoever he desired." 

Nevertheless, his rival, the bishop of Durham, 
was for some time under a belief that the king had 
given him a commission which would enable him 
to maintain his authority as justiciar. The result 
was a collision, which Richard of Devizes goes on 
to describe v/ith some of his favourite classical 
allusions and quotations : — 

" The bishop of Durham in haste proceeded direct to 
London, but not being received by the barons of the ex- 
chequer, he hastily, as if sure to triumph, pursues his v/ay 
after the chancellor, who at that time had gone on an expe- 
dition towards Lincoln ; whom, having overtaken, he saluted 
in the king's name, not frankly nor without a frown, and then 
questioned him with austerity concerning the affairs of state, 
as if it were not lawful to do anything without his consent. 
He put aside fine language and long words ; and while he 
gloried too much in power not yet received, not understand- 
ing with whom he was speaking, he poured out whatever he 
ought to have kept secret. At the conclusion of his address, 
the staff is put forth to silence talk, the king's solemn act 
much to be reverenced is exhibited for recital. The moun- 
tains travail, the silly mouse is born. The observance of 
strict silence is enjoined during the king's mandate ; all were 
hushed and held their faces attentive. An epistle is read 
in public, which would have been much more to be feared if 
it had not been read so soon ; the other, well able to conceal 
his device, shrewdly deferred to answer what he had heard 
till the seventh day, arranging a place of conference at Tick- 
hill. On the day appointed the bishop of Durham comes to 
the castle, and his attendants being commanded to wait for 
him before the gates, he goes in to the chancellor quite alone ; 
he who before had held his peace speaks first, and compels 



128 lEarlg ©Ijtontclerg of lEnglanD. 

the deceived one to recite with his own mouth letters he had 
obtained after the former against whatever he had hoped. 
As he was preparing to answer, he added, ' The other day, 
while you were speaking it was time for me to be silent ; 
now, that you may discern why I have taken a time for 
speaking, you being silent, as my lord the king lives, you 
shall not depart hence until you have given me hostages for 
all the castles which you hold being delivered up to me, for 
I do not take you as a bishop a bishop, but as a chancellor a 
chancellor ! ' The ensnared had neither the firmness nor 
the opportunity to resist ; the hostages are given, and at the 
term assigned the castles are given up for the restoring of 
the hostages." 

Shortly afterwards, Richard of Devizes tells us 
of the struggle William de Longchamp had to 
maintain King Richard's authority in his absence 
against his rebellious brother John. But mean- 
while the reader's attention is occupied by an inte- 
resting description of the equipment of the king's 
fleet, and of its union with that of the French king 
at Messina : — 

" The ships which the king found already prepared on the 
shore were one hundred in number, and fourteen busses, 
vessels of very great magnitude and admirable swiftness, 
strong vessels and very sound, whereof this was the equipage 
and appointment. The first of the ships had three spare 
rudders, thirteen anchors, thirty oars, two sails, three sets 
of ropes of all kinds, and besides these double whatever a 
ship can want, except the mast and the ship's boat. There 
is appointed to the ship's command a most experienced 
steersman, and fourteen subordinate attendants picked for 
the service are assigned him. The ship is freighted with 
forty horses of value, trained to arms, and with arms of all 
kinds for as many horsemen, and forty foot, and fifteen sailors, 



3ftu:$ar& of 3Beti}e$. 129 



and with an entire year's provisions for as many men and 
horses. There was one appointment for all the ships, but 
each of the busses received a double appointment and freight. 
The king's treasure, which was very great and inestimable, 
was divided amongst the ships and busses, that if one part 
should experience danger, the rest might be saved. All 
things being thus arranged, the king himself, with a small 
household, and the chief men of his army, with his atten- 
dants, having quitted the shore, advanced before the fleet in 
galleys, and being daily entertained by maritime towns, 
taking along with them the larger ships and busses of that 
sea, arrived prosperously at Messina. So great was the 
splendour of the approaching armament, such the clashing 
and brilliancy of their arms, so noble the sound of the 
trumpets and clarions, that the city quaked and was greatly 
astounded, and there came to meet the king a multitude of 
all ages, people without number, wondering and proclaiming 
with what exceeding glory and magnificence that king had 
arrived, surpassing the King of France, who, with his forces, 
had arrived seven days before. And forasmuch as the King 
of France had been already received into the palace of 
Tancred, King of Sicily, within the walls, the King of 
England pitched his camp without the city. The same day, 
the King of France, knowing of the arrival of his comrade 
and brother, flies to his reception ; nor could their gestures 
sufficiently express in embraces and kisses how much each 
of them rejoiced in the other. The armies cheered one 
another with mutual applause and intercourse, as if so many 
thousand men had been all of one heart and one mind. In 
such pastimes is the holiday spent until the evening, and 
the weary kings departing, although not satiated, return 
every one to his own quarters." 

For all this, however, the difference in character 
between the two kings, which made real co-opera- 
tion impossible, displayed itself almost imme- 
diately. As our author continues : — 

ENG. K 



lEarlg @fitontckr*S of lEnglantJ, 



" On the next day, the King of England presently caused 
gibbets to be erected without the camp to hang thereon 
thieves and robbers. The judges delegated spared neither 
sex nor age ; the cause of the stranger and the native found 
the like law and the like punishment. The King of France, 
whatever transgression his people committed, or whatever 
offence was committed against them, took no notice and 
held his peace ; the King of England esteeming the country 
of those implicated in guilt as a matter of no consequence, 
considered every man his own, and left no transgression un- 
punished ; wherefore the one was called a Lamb by the 
Griffones, the other obtained the name of a Lion." 

The Griffones, as they were called, a mongrel 
race of Greeks and Saracens, the most powerful 
and warlike people of that region, were particularly- 
troublesome. They favoured the French, but con- 
tinually broke faith with the English, and harassed 
them, till Philip himself, who had been endeavour- 
ing to arrange terms of amity, came to the tent of 
the King of England to bear witness that he held 
him blameless in taking up arms to punish them. 
Richard accordingly proceeded to attack the city 
of Messina : — 

" The terrible standard of the dragon is borne in front 
unfurled, while behind the king the sound of the trumpet 
excites the army. The sun shone brightly on the golden 
shields, and the mountains were resplendent in their glare ; 
they marched cautiously and orderly, and the affair was 
managed without show. The Griffones, on the contrary, the 
city gates being closed, stood armed at the battlements of 
the walls and towers, as yet fearing nothing, and incessantly 
discharged their darts upon the enemy. The king, acquainted 
with nothing better than to take cities by storm and batter 



&tri)ari) of Wzbiztz. 131 



forts, let their quivers be emptied first, and then at length 
made his first assault by his archers who preceded the army. 
The sky is hidden by the shower of arrows, a thousand darts 
pierce through the shields spread abroad on the ramparts ; 
nothing could save the rebels against the force of the darts. 
The walls are left without guard, because no one could look 
out of doors but he would have an arrow in his eye before 
he could shut it. In. the mean time the king, with his troops, 
without repulse, freely, and as though with permission, ap- 
proached the gates of the city, which, with the application 
of the battering-ram, he forced in an instant, and, having 
led in his army, took every hold in the city, even to Tancred's 
palace and the lodgings of the French around their king's 
quarters, which he spared in respect of the king, his lord. 
The standards of the victors are planted on the towers 
through the whole circuit of the city, and each of the sur- 
rendered fortifications he entrusted to particular captains of 
his army, and caused his nobles to take up their quarters in 
the city." 

This author passes lightly over, or rather omits 
to mention, the quarrels which arose between 
Richard and Philip, and the breaking off of Richard's 
engagement to marry the French king's sister. He 
also expresses himself rather mysteriously about 
Richard's engagement with Berengaria of Navarre, 
and the journey undertaken by his mother, Queen 
Eleanor, to conduct the young lady to him in 
Sicily : — 

" Queen Eleanor, a matchless woman, beautiful and chaste, 
powerful and modest, meek and eloquent, which is rarely 
wont to be met with in a woman who was advanced in years 
enough to have had two husbands and two sons crowned 
kings, still indefatigable for every undertaking, whose power 
was the admiration of her age, having taken with her the 



132 3Earlg ©firomclerjs of lEnglanO. 

daughter of the King of the Navarrese, a maid more accom- 
plished than beautiful, followed the king, her son, and 
having overtaken him still abiding in Sicily, she came to 
Pisa, a city full of every good, and convenient for her recep- 
tion, there to await the king's pleasure, together with the 
King of Navarre's ambassadors and the damsel. Many 
knew what I wish that none of us had known. The same 
queen, in the time of her former husband, Louis VII. of 
France, went to Jerusalem. Let none speak more thereof. 
I also know well. Be silent." 

Some of the further adventures which befel the 
expedition before it reached the Holy Land have 
an additional interest nowadays on account of the 
island which was the scene of them. 

" The fleet of Richard, King of the English, put out to 
sea, and proceeded in this order. In the forefront went three 
ships only, in one of which was the Queen of Sicily and the 
young damsel of Navarre, probably still a virgin ; in the 
other two, a certain part of the king's treasure and arms ; in 
each of the three marines and provisions. In the second 
line there were, what with ships, and busses, and men-of-war, 
thirteen ; in the third, fourteen ; in the fourth, twenty ; in the 
fifth, thirty ; in the sixth, forty ; in the seventh, sixty ; in the 
last, the king himself, followed with his galleys. There was 
between the ships, and between their lines, a certain space 
left by the sailors at such interval, that from one line to 
another the sound of the trumpet, from one ship to another 
the human voice, could be heard. This also was admirab^ 
that the king was no less cheerful and healthy, strong and 
mighty, light and gay, at sea, than he was wont to be by 
land. I conclude, therefore, that there was not one man 
more powerful than he in the world, either by land or sea. 

"Now, as the ships were proceeding in the aforesaid 
manner and order, some being before others, two of the three 
first, driven by the violence of the winds, were broken on the 



&id)arti of Ueb{?eg. 133 

rocks near the port of Cyprus ; the third, which was English, 
more speedy than they, having turned back into the deep, 
escaped the peril. Almost all the men of both ships got 
away alive to land, many of whom the hostile Cypriotes slew, 
some they took captive, some taking refuge in a certain 
church, were besieged. Whatever also in the ships was cast 
up by the sea, fell a prey to the Cypriotes. The prince also 
of that island coming up, received for his share the gold and 
the arms ; and he caused the shore to be guarded by all the 
armed force he could summon together, that he might not 
permit the fleet which followed to approach, lest the king 
should take again what had been thus stolen from him. 
Above the port was a strong city, and, upon a natural rock, 
a high fortified castle. The whole of that nation was war- 
like, and accustomed to live by theft. They placed beams 
and planks at the entrance of the port, across the passage, 
the gates, and entrances ; and the whole land, with one mind, 
prepared themselves for a conflict against the English. God 
so willed that the cursed people should receive the reward of 
their evil deeds by the hands of one who would not spare. 
The third English ship, in which were the women, having 
cast out its anchors, rode out at sea, and watched all things 
from opposite, to report the misfortune to the king, lest 
haply, being ignorant of the loss and disgrace, he should 
pass the place unrevenged. The next line of the king's ships 
came up after the other, and they all stopped at the first. 
A full report reached the king, who, sending heralds to the 
lord of the island, and obtaining no satisfaction, commanded 
his entire army to arm, from the first even to the last, and 
to get out of the great ships into the galleys and boats, and 
follow him to the shore. What he commanded was imme- 
diately performed ; they came in arms to the port. The 
king being armed, leaped first from his galley, and gave the 
first blow in the war ; but before he was able to strike a 
second, he had three thousand of his followers with him 
striking away by his side. All the timber that had been 
placed as a barricade in the port was cast down instantly, 



134 lEarlg ©Dtonicktg of lEnglani). 

and the brave fellows went up into the city as ferocious as 
lionesses are wont to be when robbed of their young. The 
fight was carried on manfully against them, numbers fell 
wounded on both sides, and the swords of both parties were 
made drunk with blood. The Cypriotes are vanquished, the 
city is taken, with the castle besides ; whatever the victors 
choose is ransacked, and the lord of the island is himself 
taken and brought to the king. He being taken, supplicates 
and obtains pardon ; he offers homage to the king, and it is 
received ; and he swears, though unasked, that henceforth 
he will hold the island of him as his liege lord, and will open 
all the castles of the land to him ; make satisfaction for the 
damage already done ; and further, bring presents of his 
own. On being dismissed after the oath, he is commanded 
to fulfil the conditions in the morning." 

Instead of doing so, however, the king of Cyprus 
was found next day to have escaped. Richard is 
joined at the same time by the king of Jerusalem, 
who came to the island to salute him ; and the two 
kings combine to pursue the fugitive, the one by 
land and the other by water. Their forces reas- 
sembled before a city in which he had taken refuge, 
and a sharp battle is fought, in which the English 
would have been beaten if they had been under 
any other general but king Richard. They gain, 
however, a dear-bought victory, and pursue the 
king of the island to a third castle, where he sur- 
renders on condition that he should not be put in 
irons. Having learnt, apparently, some degree of 
duplicity from his adversary, King Richard con- 
sents, and causes shackles of silver to be made for 
him. He then traverses the whole island, takes 
all its castles, and appoints constables of his own 



3&id)art> of Mtbiiw. 135 

to keep them ; assigning also sheriffs and justices 
for the whole island, just as in England. He after- 
wards sails to the siege of Acre, capturing on his 
way a very large merchant ship destined by Saladin 
for the relief of the besieged. His arrival at Acre, 
we are told, "was welcomed by the besiegers with 
as great joy as if it had been Christ that had come 
again on earth to restore the kingdom of Israel." 
The French king had got there before him, but his 
lustre paled on Richard's arrival like that of the 
moon before the rising sun. 

Richard had brought with him from Sicily the 
materials of a wooden fortress which he had set up 
at Messina to overawe the Griffones. It was now 
set up at Acre, and from its height men overlooked 
the city. Archers were set upon it, who shot their 
missiles at the Turks and Thracians, while engines 
cast stones, and battering rams assailed the walls, 
of which sappers also undermined the foundations. 
The soldiers, at the same time protected by their 
shields, planted scaling ladders and sought an 
entrance over the ramparts. "The king himself 
ran up and down through the ranks, directing some, 
reproving some, and urging others, and thus was 
he everywhere present with every one of them, so 
that whatever they all did, ought properly to be 
ascribed to him." Affairs grew desparate with the 
besieged, and many of them, prior to surrender, 
" made a purse of their stomachs," as our author 
expresses it, swallowing a number of gold coins 
that the victors might not profit by their wealth. 



136 lEarlg (Efirotucktg of ISnglanD. 

So all of them came disarmed before the kings of 
England and France outside the city and were 
given into custody. 

The causes which led the French king soon after 
this to desert King Richard and abandon the ex- 
pedition altogether, are described as follows. After 
mentioning (certainly without a sign of disapproval) 
that Richard beheaded all his captives except one 
of the most distinguished, the writer says : — 

" A certain marquess of Montferrat, a smooth-faced man, 
had held Tyre, which he had seized on many years ago, to 
whom the king of the French sold all his captives alive, and 
promised the crown of the region which was not yet con- 
quered ; but the king of the English withstood him to the 
face. ' It is not proper,' said he, 'for a man of your reputa- 
tion to bestow or promise what is not yet obtained ; but 
further, if the cause of your journey be Christ, when at 
length you have taken Jerusalem, the chief of the cities of 
this region, from the hand of the enemy, you will, without 
delay or condition, restore the kingdom to Guy, the legiti- 
mate king of Jerusalem. For the rest, if you recollect, you 
did not obtain Acre without a participator, so that neither 
should that which is the property of two be dealt out by one 
hand.' Oh, oh ! how fine for a goodly throat ! The mar- 
quess, bereft of his blissful hope, returns to Tyre, and the 
king of the French, who had greatly desired to strengthen 
himself against his envied ally by means of the marquess, 
now fell off daily ; and this added to the continual irritation 
of his mind — that even the scullion of the king of the English 
fared more sumptuously than the cupbearer of the French. 
After some time, letters were forged in the tent of the king of 
the French, by which, as if they had been sent by his nobles 
out of France, the king was recalled to France. A cause is 
invented which would necessarily be respected more than it 



Mtcfjart) of 3Bebiie$. 1.3 7 



deserved ; his only son, after a long illness, was now des- 
paired of by the physicians ; France exposed to be desolated, 
if after the son's death, the father (as it might fall out) should 
perish in a foreign land. So, frequent council being held 
between the kings hereupon, as they were both great and 
could not dwell together, Abraham remaining, Lot departed 
from him. Moreover, the king of the French, by his chief 
nobles, gave security by oath for himself and his vassals to 
the king of the English, that he would observe every pledge 
until he should return to his kingdom in peace." 

But, after all, the story of the Crusade occupies 
but a secondary place in this author's narrative. 
Here and there it comes in by fragments, just as 
the news from the East may be supposed to have 
reached the monasteries of England, diverting 
attention from time to time amid the troubles at 
home. To the modern reader the domestic history 
of England under Richard I. is of very inferior 
interest ; the imagination is engrossed by his ad- 
ventures in the Holy Land, and what befel him on 
his way thither and back to his own kingdom. 
But in the brief chronicle of Richard of Devizes 
affairs wear their natural aspect, and the progress 
of the Crusade, though watched with the deepest 
interest, is thrown into the background. We follow 
the acts of King Richard, not as in a romance, but 
as in a journal, with the pride of contemporaries 
and fellow-countrymen in achievements which have 
made our king and nation distinguished above all 
others. Yet with the greatest possible sympathy 
on our part we cannot help feeling the more imme- 
diate pressure of things at home, where Earl John 



138 lEarlg ©Drcmiclcrg of lEnglanti. 

is gnashing his teeth with anger at the chancellor, 
and the latter with all his astuteness is at length 
unable to contend with him. We learn how the 
chancellor, after in vain calling upon the city of 
London to close its gates against the earl, throws 
himself for his own safety into the Tower, and is 
watched by the citizens that he may not escape ; 
also, how Earl John comes to London, where a 
great meeting is held and elects him chief justiciary 
of the kingdom, ordering that all castles shall be 
surrendered to such as he shall appoint ; how the 
chancellor, placed at bay and without hope of 
assistance, even then refuses to acknowledge him ; 
how the Tower is more closely besieged in conse- 
quence ; and how the chancellor at last quits the 
fortress and goes to meet his accusers, promising 
to submit to whatever should be determined, so 
that he is compelled to surrender his castles, but 
cannot be got even then to acknowledge himself in 
the wrong, or yield up any office committed to him 
by the king, till he has appealed by message to the 
king himself. The heroism oC the chancellor, one 
would think, might have excited some small share 
of the admiration so freely bestowed upon the 
heroism of King Richard ; but it meets with little 
enough from Richard of Devizes. 

The modern reader will, however, form his own 
comment on various subjects quite apart from the 
reflections in which our author is pleased to indulge. 
For Richard of Devizes had not the gift of pro- 
phecy, and could not discern the germ of great 



l&tdjarti of. Debueg. 139 

future good in what seemed to him a mere result 
of anarchy. Thus, just after the passage above 
quoted about the parting of the French and English 
kings, we are told of the first incorporation of the 
city of London, which is recorded as follows : — 

" On that day the commonalty of the Londoners was 
granted and instituted, to which all the nobles of the king- 
dom, and even the very bishops of that province, are com- 
pelled to swear. Now for the first time London, its con- 
spiracy being pardoned, found by experience that there was 
no king in the kingdom, as neither king Richard himself, nor 
his predecessor and father Henry, would have suffered this 
to be done for one thousand thousand marks of silver. How 
great evils forsooth may come forth of this conspiracy, may 
be estimated by a definition, such as this. The commonalty 
is the pride of the mob, the dread of the kingdom, the fer- 
ment of the priesthood (tumor plebis, timor regni, tepor 
sacerdotii?) 

Another subject on which this Winchester monk 
felt very strongly was the conduct of Hugh de 
Nonant, bishop of Coventry, in removing monks 
from his cathedral and filling their places with 
secular canons. He and his monks seem to have 
been on bad terms for some time, and in October, 
1 190, when two new bishops were consecrated at 
Westminster by Archbishop Baldwin, Hugh de 
Nonant laid his complaint before the primate and 
the other assembled bishops, that they had laid 
violent hands on him and drawn his blood before 
the altar. He had already, however, before com- 
plaining, expelled the greater part of them, and 
his object in laying the case before his brother 



140 lEarlg ©firomckrg of Isnglant). 

prelates was to obtain their sanction to what he 
had done. The bishops shared his feelings and 
approved the act. Monks were laymen and apt to 
be a little insubordinate now and then ; so the 
bishops, although it is said they only yielded to 
Hugh de Nonant's importunity, could not but sym- 
pathise with what was done. Bishop Hugh accord- 
ingly not only expelled the monks but broke down 
all the workshops of the monastery, that secular 
industry might no longer be carried on within its 
walls. Nay, he removed the walls themselves, and 
made use of the materials in finishing his own 
cathedral, and employed freely the property of the 
monastery in giving wages to masons and plas- 
terers. Special delicacies from two of the chief 
manors of the monks were always placed on his 
table before him. With the rest of their revenues 
he endowed prebends, some of which he placed for 
ever at the disposal of the see of Rome for the 
benefit of the cardinals, appointing certain cardinals 
prebendaries from the very first. A fine row of 
houses soon grew up for the accommodation of the 
new canons, even of the absent ones, in case that 
once in their lives they were ever tempted to visit 
the place. Not one of the prebendaries kept 
regular residence. 

"'This, forsooth,' exclaims our monk with indignation, 
' this forsooth is true religion ; this should the Church imitate 
and emulate.' It will be permitted the secular canon to be 
absent from his church as long as he may please, and to 
consume the patrimony of Christ where, and when, and in 



Jitcftarl) of HBtbiit$, 141 



whatsoever luxuries he may list. Let them only provide this, 
that a frequent vociferation be heard in the house of the 
Lord. If the stranger should knock at the door of such, if 
the poor should cry, he who lives before the door would 
answer (he himself being a sufficiently needy vicar) ' Pass 
on, and seek elsewhere for alms, for the master of the house 
is not at home.' This is the glorious religion of the clergy, 
for the sake of which the bishop of Chester, the first of men 
that durst commit so great iniquity, expelled his monks from 
Coventry. For the sake of clerks irregularly regular * — that 
is to say, of canons, he capriciously turned out the monks ; 
monks who, not with others', but with their own mouths 
praised the Lord, who dwelt and walked in the house of the 
Lord with unanimity all the days of their lives, who, beyond 
their food and raiment knew nothing earthly, whose bread 
was always for the poor, whose door was at all times open to 
every traveller : yet they did not thus please the bishop, who 
never loved either monks or their order. A man of bitter 
jocularity, who even though he might occasionally spare some 
one of them never ceased to worry the monks." 

We must now take leave of Richard of Devizes, 
a writer to whom, considering the brevity of his 
chronicle we have perhaps devoted more attention 
than our limits justly warranted. But as an expo- 
nent of his own times he stands alone. A more 
detailed and even a more interesting account ol 
Richards I.'s expedition to the Holy Land has been 
written by an actual eye-witness ; but it is devoted 
to that subject alone. There are also other chro- 
nicles which treat of the internal affairs of England, 
but none with so much zest. Whoever really seeks 

* This is a bitter sarcasm. Canons of the order of St. Austin 
were called regular canons, because they lived under his rule. But 
these were not even regular canons of St. Austin. 



142 lEarlg ©Ijrorackrg of ianglanD. 

to comprehend the spirit of Cceur de Lion's age — 
the spirit of the monk, of the crusader, and of the 
politician, should read the chronicle of Richard of 
Devizes before all others. His style is a little 
artificial, owing to his extreme love of expressing 
himself in the words of classical authors. His 
pages are full of quotations, which are better evi- 
dence of his extensive reading than of a highly 
cultivated taste. But it must be admitted that his 
powers of description were of no mean order, and 
that the matter of his little treatise is of rare and 
exceptional value. 

A remarkable picture both of monastic and of 
social life in England at the end of the twelfth 
century, may be seen in the chronicle of Joceline of 
Brakeland, monk of St. Edmundsbury,* giving an 
account of the energetic government of Abbot 
Sampson of that monastery. Sampson's prede- 
cessor Hugh was old and feeble, and had got the 
house into debt. The farms, forests, and manor 
houses of the abbey were all going to decay, and 
to keep up the dignity of the house he borrowed 
money at interest. The debt of the monastery 
had been regularly increasing for eight years before 
the abbot's death ; and what was worse, every 
minor official had a seal of his own and bound 
himself in like manner, both to Jews and Chris- 
tians. For these practices the cellarer had been 

* Edited for the Camden Society, by John Gage Rokewode, in 
1840 ; and afterwards translated by T. E. Tomlins, under the title 
of Monastic and Social Life in the Twelfth Century. 



^Jocdine of . 3Srafcdant>. 143 



deposed, and the old abbot was induced to make 
master Sampson his subsacrist, who kept a very 
strict survey over the workmen employed in the 
monastery and took care " that no breach, chink, 
crack, or flaw should be left unremedied so far as he 
was able." After the abbot's death he was elected 
to fill his place, not directly, but as the result of 
various conferences between a deputation of monks 
and the king. 

Thoroughly imbued with the monastic spirit him- 
self, he seems to have been in every way well fitted 
to rule in such a community. The cause of his first 
becoming a monk he had related himself to our 
informant Joceline. When a child of nine he had 
dreamed the devil appeared to him with out- 
stretched arms before the gates of a monastery 
and wanted to seize him, on which he screamed 
out " St. Edmund, save me ! " and awoke calling 
upon a saint whose name he verily believed he had 
never heard before. His mother, hearing the 
dream, very naturally took him to St. Edmund's 
to pray ; and on coming near the monastery he 
exclaimed to her, " See, mother, this is the very 
place I saw in my dream ! " There could not be a 
doubt what to do with such a child. 

The following picture of the man is not a little 
interesting : — 

" The abbot Sampson was of middle stature, nearly bald, 
having a face neither round nor yet long, a prominent nose, 
thick lips, clear and very piercing eyes, ears of the nicest 
sense of hearing, lofty eyebrows, and often shaved ; and he 



144 lEarlg ©fitoniclerg of lEnglant). 

soon became hoarse from a short exposure to cold. On the 
day of his election he was forty and seven years old, and had 
been a monk seventeen years ; having a few grey hairs in a 
reddish beard, with a few grey in a black head of hair which 
somewhat curled ; but within fourteen years after his election, 
it all became as white as snow ; a man remarkably temperate, 
never slothful, well able and willing to ride or walk till old 
age gained upon him and moderated such inclination ; who 
on hearing the news of the cross being captive, and the loss 
of Jerusalem, began to use under-garments of horse-hair and 
a horse-hair shirt, and to abstain from flesh and flesh meats ; 
nevertheless he desired that meats should be placed before 
him while at table for the increase of the alms dish. Sweet 
milk, honey and such like things he ate with greater appetite 
than other food. He abhorred liars, drunkards, and talkative 
folks ; for virtue ever is consistent with itself and rejects contra- 
ries. He also much condemned persons given to murmur at 
their meat or drink, and particularly monks who were dissatis- 
fied therewith, himself adhering to the uniform course he had 
practised when a monk. He had likewise this virtue in him- 
self that he never changed the mess you set before him. 
Once when I, then a novice, happened to serve in the refec- 
tory, it came into my head to ascertain if this were true, and 
I thought I would place before him a mess which would have 
displeased any other but him, being served in a very black 
and broken dish. But when he had looked at it, he was as 
one that saw it not. Some delay taking place, I felt sorry 
that I had so done ; and so, snatching away the dish I 
changed the mess and the dish for a better, and brought it to 
him ; but this substitution he took in ill part, and was angry 
with me for it. An eloquent man was he both in French and 
Latin, but intent more on the substance and method of what 
was to be said than on the style of words. He could read 
English manuscript very critically, and was wont to preach to 
the people in English, as well as in the dialect of Norfolk, 
where he was. born and bred ; wherefore he caused a pulpit to 
be set up in the church for the ease of the hearers, and for 



3Jfocelm« of ^rafeelanti. 145 

the ornament of the church. The abbot also seemed to 
prefer an active life to one of contemplation, and rather com- 
mended good officials than good monks ; and very seldom 
approved of any one on account of his literary acquirements, 
unless he also possessed sufficient knowledge of secular 
matters ; and whenever he chanced to hear that any prelate 
had resigned his pastoral care and become an anchorite, he 
did not praise him for it. He never applauded men of too 
complying a disposition, saying ' He who endeavours to 
please all, ought to please none.' " 

He himself was a man not to be trifled with. 
Extravagance had been so long tolerated in the 
office of the cellarer, that even with a change of 
men it could not be altogether checked. Abbot 
Sampson associated a clerk with the new cellarer 
to act as his controller, and when even that measure 
proved ineffectual, took the office into his own 
hands. It was a very important office indeed ; for 
the cellarer bought provisions for the convent, sold 
their corn for them, and levied a number of diffe- 
rent dues within the town. 

But even Abbot Sampson himself failed occa- 
sionally in securing the rights of his convent as 
against the town. It was urged upon him that 
the monastery had not its fair share in the increas- 
ing prosperity of the country ; that while the 
burgage rents of other towns in England were 
enhanced, St. Edmund's only paid the abbot forty 
pounds as it had done of yore. The burgesses had 
been quietly allowed to ignore the rights of the 
lord abbot. Many were the stalls and sheds and 
shops they had set up in the market-place merely 

ENG. L 



146 lEarlg Chroniclers of lEnglanD. 

by agreement with the town bailiffs, without the 
assent of the convent. The convent are of opinion 
that it is high time to stop this sort of thing. The 
burgesses are summoned to make answer and 
appeal from the abbot's court to the king's ; they 
claim that the town is free by charter in respect of 
all tenements held for one year and a day in time 
of peace without any claim being made upon them; 
also they allege divers old customs which the 
monastery do not admit. Our abbot, however, 
thinks it will not do to disturb old possessors right 
and left. He accepts as a compromise the payment 
of one hundred shillings. The burgesses agree, 
but are slack in paying even that, and offer a silken 
hood of the same value every year on condition 
of being quit of the tithes of their profits de- 
manded by the sacrist ; and this being refused, we 
lose both our silken hood and our hundred shillings. 
A practical comment upon an old saw, thinks 
Joceline, for — 

" He that will not when he may, 
When he will, he shall have nay." 

But our abbot is much more spirited in vindi- 
cating our spiritual rights against the Archbishop 
of Canterbury, Hubert Walter, legate of the 
apostolic see, who, coming home from the north, 
sends two clerks to express his intention of paying 
us a visit, and to know if we will receive him as a 
legate is received elsewhere. On this we take 
counsel, and come to the determination that we are 



3Jocclinc of IfoafulanD. 147 

willing to receive him with all honour and reverence, 
and we send messengers of our own along with his 
to intimate the same. But " our intention was that 
in the same way as we had done to the Bishop of 
Ely and other legates, so, in like manner, should 
we show him all possible honour, with a procession 
and ringing of bells, and that we should receive him 
with the other usual solemnities, until he should 
come into the chapterhouse, perhaps with the inten- 
tion of making his visitation, which, if he were to 
proceed in doing, then all of us were to oppose him 
might and main to his face, appealing to Rome 
and standing upon our charters." Meanwhile, how- 
ever, the archbishop is gratified by our reply ; but 
we, for our part, lose no time in sending a messenger 
to the Pope to know if we be accountable to any 
legate except one sent by his Holiness a latere. 
The Pope decides in our favour, and sends the 
archbishop a prohibition against exercising juris- 
diction over any exempt church like that of our 
monastery. So the primate's purpose is defeated, 
and our liberties are successfully maintained. 

This process of sending to Rome was not always 
free from difficulty. Abbot Sampson himself, in 
former days, had gone on such a mission when the 
times were full of danger : — 

" It was reported to the abbot that the church of the 
Woolpit was vacant, Walter of Coutances being chosen to 
the bishopric of Lincoln. He presently convened the prior 
and great part of the convent, and, taking up his story, thus 
began : ' Ye well know what trouble I had in respect of the 



148 lEarlg ©firoiuckrg of fSnglanti. 

church of Woolpit ; and, in order that it should be obtained 
for your own use, I journeyed to Rome at your instance, at 
the time of the schism between Pope Alexander and Octa- 
vian ; and I passed through Italy at that time, when all 
clerks bearing letters of our lord, the Pope. Alexander, were 
taken, and some were imprisoned, and some hanged, and 
some, with nose and lips cut off, were sent back to the Pope, 
to his shame and confusion. I, however, pretended to be a 
Scotchman ; and, putting on the garb of a Scotchman, I 
often shook my staff in the manner they use that weapon 
they call a gaveloc* at those who .mocked me, uttering 
threatening language, after the manner of the Scotch. To 
those who met and questioned me as to who I was, I an- 
swered nothing but "Ride, ride Rome, tic7-n Canterbury P\ 
This I did to conceal myself and my errand, and that I should 
get to Rome safer under the guise of a Scotchman. Having 
obtained letters from the Pope, even as I wished, on my 
return I passed by a certain castle, as I was taking my way 
from the city, and behold the officers thereof came about me, 
laying hold upon me and saying, " This vagabond, who makes 
himself out to be a Scotchman, is either a spy, or bears letters 
from the false Pope Alexander." And while they examined 
my ragged clothes, and my leggings, and my breeches, and 
even the old shoes which I carried over my shoulders, after 
the fashion of the Scotch, I thrust my hand into the little 
wallet which I carried, wherein was contained the writing of 
our lord the Pope, close by a little jug I had for drinking ; 
and the Lord God and St. Edmund so permitting, I drew out 
that writing together with the jug, so that, extending my arm 
aloft, I held the writ underneath the jug. They could see the 
jug plain enough, but they did not find the writ ; and so I 
got clear out of their hands, in the name of the Lord. What- 

* A javelin or pike. 

f Intended probably to convey to his questioners the idea, "I 
ride to Rome, and then return to Canterbury." In other words, 
"I am a mere pilgrim, first going to Rome, and then to visit St. 
Thomas a Becket's shrine." 



^ocelme of 33raManti. 149 

ever money I had about me they took away ; therefore it 
behoved me to beg from door to door, being at no charge, 
until I arrived in England.'" 

Of the good works done by Abbot Sampson 
during his tenure of office, it is specially to be 
noted that he bought stone houses in the town for 
schools, endowed the hospital of Babwell for the 
support of the poor with lands which he had pur- 
chased from King Richard, and caused the guest- 
house, larder, and various other portions of the 
monastery, to be rebuilt, or roofed over with tiles 
instead of thatch, to exclude all danger of fire. 
A stone almshouse, too, is made to replace a 
wooden one. The abbot is discouraged from be- 
stowing costly gifts upon the church by the fact 
that the silver table of the great altar, and other 
precious ornaments, had to be given up for the 
redemption of King Richard ; but he devotes his 
principal efforts to making a crest to the shrine of 
St. Edmund which no man hereafter shall dare to 
lay hands on ; for though everything else that was 
valuable all over England was taken for King 
Richard's redemption, that shrine was left inviolate. 
The question had, indeed, come before the justices 
of the Exchequer, whether the shrine of St. Edmund 
should not be, at least in part, stripped of its orna- 
ments ; but the abbot answered firmly, " Be assured 
that will never be done by me, nor can any man 
compel me to assent to it. I will, however, open 
the doors of the church ; let any man enter who 
will, and let him come who dares." Then each of 



150 lEarlg ©frronidcrg of lEnglanti. 

the justices answered with an oath, "Not I, not I. 
St. Edmund is severe even upon the remote and 
absent ; much more will he rage against those 
present who attempt to carry off his tunic." So 
the shrine is safe, it is believed, for after ages, " and 
now plates of gold and silver resound between the 
hammer and the anvil." 

It is no wonder that in a case of this kind our 
abbot resists the demands of the king's justices. 
He can even resist the king himself. King Richard, 
at the solicitation of some of his courtiers, desires 
of him the wardship of the infant daughter of 
Adam de Cokefeld. It is the feudal right of the 
abbot himself, and he has already given it away. 
He sends a messenger to the king to excuse him- 
self. Richard storms at the refusal, and swears he 
would be revenged on the proud abbot, were it not 
for the reverence of St. Edmund, whom he fears. 
On the return of the messenger, the abbot calmly 
answers the king's threats : " Let the king send, if 
he will, and seize the ward ; he has power to do 
his own will, and carry off the whole abbey. I will 
never bend to give my assent to what he asks, nor 
shall it ever be done by me ; for it is to be feared 
that such things will be drawn into precedents to 
the prejudice of my successors. For this matter 
I will never give money to the king. Let the Most 
High see to it. I will patiently endure whatever 
may befall." On this people expected that the 
king would be still more deeply offended ; but, 
instead of that, he wrote to the abbot in a friendly 



3}ocdme of 93t:aMan&. 151 

tone, and desired of him only a present of some of 
his dogs, which the abbot had the wisdom to send, 
with some horses, and further gifts superadded. 
The result was that the king publicly commended 
the abbot's loyalty, and sent him a valuable ring 
which he had received from Pope Innocent III., 
the first gift sent to him by the new pontiff after 
his consecration. 

We have already made pretty considerable 
extracts from a very brief chronicle, besides giving 
the substance of other passages of great interest ; 
but almost every page is full of matter that invites 
quotation. Besides contentions with the towns- 
men of St. Edmund's, the abbey has controversies 
with the city of London and with other powerful 
bodies elsewhere : — 

" The merchants of London claimed to be quit of toll at 
the fair of St. Edmund ; nevertheless, many paid it, un- 
willingly, indeed, and under compulsion ; wherefore a great 
tumult and commotion was made among the citizens of 
London in their hustings. However, they came in a body 
and informed the abbot, Sampson, that they were entitled to 
be quit of toll throughout all England, by authority of the 
charter which they had from King Henry the Second. 
Whereto the abbot answered, that were it necessary he was 
well able to vouch the king to warranty that he never granted 
them any charter to the prejudice of our church, nor to the 
prejudice of the liberties of St. Edmund, to whom St. Edward 
had granted and confirmed toll and theam and all regalities 
before the conquest of England ; and that King Henry had 
done no more than give to the Londoners an exemption from 
toll throughout his own lordships, and in places where he 
was able to grant it ; but so far as concerned the town of 



i.52 lEarlg ©ijromckrg of lEngknD. 

St. Edmund, he was not able so to do, for it was not his to 
dispose of. The Londoners hearing this, ordered by common 
council that no one of them should go to the fair of St. 
Edmund ] and for two years they kept away, whereby our 
fair sustained great loss, and the offering of the sacrist was 
very much diminished indeed. At last, upon the mediation 
of the Bishop of London and many others, it was settled 
between us and them, that they should come to the fair, and 
that some of them should pay toll, but that it should be forth- 
with returned to them, that by such a colourable act the 
privilege on both sides should be preserved. But in process 
of time, when the abbot had made agreement with his 
knights, and, as it were, slept in tranquility, behold again 
' the Philistines be upon thee, Sampson ! ' Lo, the London- 
ers, with one voice, were threatening that they would lay 
level with the earth the stone houses which the abbot had 
built that very year, or that they would take distress by a 
hundred-fold from the men of St. Edmund's, unless the abbot 
forthwith redressed the wrong done them by the bailiffs of 
the town of St. Edmund's who had taken fifteen pence from 
the carts of the citizens of London, who, in their way from 
Yarmouth, laden with herrings, had made passage through 
our demesnes. Furthermore, the citizens of London said 
that they were quit of toll in every market, and on every 
occasion, and in every place throughout all England, from 
the time when Rome was first founded, and that London 
was founded at the very same time. Also that they ought to 
have such an exemption throughout all England, as well by 
reason of its being a privileged city, which was of old time 
the metropolis and head of the kingdom, as by reason of its 
antiquity. But the abbot sought reasonable imparlances 
thereupon until the return of our lord, the King of England,* 
that he might consult with him upon this ; and having taken 
advice of the lawyers, he replevied to the claimants those 
fifteen pence, without prejudice to the question of each party's 
right." 

* This was during King Richard's absence on the Crusade. 



3tocelme of 38raManD. 153 

Another dispute of a similar nature led to pro- 
ceedings of a more energetic character. It was 
with the monks of Ely, who had set up a market 
at Lakenheath, having obtained a charter from the 
king. The monks of St Edmund's complain of 
the infringement of their rights, but suggest a com- 
promise. The monks of Ely refuse to give way ; 
on which those of St, Edmund's procure an inquest 
to be had,' and the king gives them a charter that 
no market be henceforth held within the liberty 
of St. Edmund, without the abbot's assent. The 
steward of the hundred accordingly goes to inter- 
dict its being held, but meets with so much abuse 
and violence that he is driven to make good his 
retreat. The abbot being then at London consults 
with lawyers about it, and sends his bailiffs with a 
company of men of St. Edmund's to interrupt the 
market and carry off any buyers and sellers they 
might find into custody. At dead of night six 
hundred men, well armed, took the road from St 
Edmund's to Lakenheath. Their approach was no 
sooner observed than all who were at the market 
ran hither and thither, so that not one of them 
could be found. The prior of Ely had made 
preparations with his bailiffs to defend the buyers 
and sellers, but he was quite discomfited and dared 
not stir out of his inn ; while the men of St. 
Edmund's carried off shambles, stalls, and cattle, 
the latter being given up by replevin shortly after. 
It was a glorious victory ; but the bishop, it seems, 
took proceedings afterwards for the outrage, and 
the final result is not recorded. 



154 lEarlg ©Ijronickrg of lEnglanti. 

Thus, even monastic life, we find, was not with- 
out occasional excitement ; and we are thankful 
to the pen which has described for us so vividly 
what these excitements were. In this brief 
chronicle of Joceline of Brakeland we realise many- 
things for which we look in vain to more elaborate 
compositions ; and for a social picture of the times 
it is altogether unique. The monk, we can very- 
well perceive, was by no means so cut off from the 
world as to have lost all sympathy with what his 
neighbours were doing out of doors. On the con- 
trary, it is he more than others who is concerned in 
all that passes. We can see distinctly how the 
town itself is the mere foster-child of the monastery ; 
how its markets, its fairs, and its customs all belong 
to the abbot ; how the monastery provides for the 
education of the district, and is the centre not 
merely of the religious, but even of the social life 
of the community. And surely the facts which 
illustrate all this are quite as material to a true 
conception of our history as anything related by 
more voluminous writers concerning the great 
events of the times in which they wrote. 




CHAPTER IV. 



IMAGINATIVE AND-SOBER HISTORY- 
NORTHERN WRITERS. 



-WELSH AND 



Robert of Gloucester's patronage of literature — Geoffrey of Mon- 
mouth's History of the Kings of Britain — Its popularity — Its 
apocryphal character and extraordinary legends — Their acceptance 
as history — Clergymen more witty than monks — William of New- 
burgh denounces Geoffrey's History — Giraldus Cambrensis also — 
Credulity of Giraldus — His account of his birthplace — His family 
and personal history — His election to St. David's — Goes to Ireland 
with Prince John — His Topographia Hibernice — His Vaticinal 
History of the Conquest of Ireland — Description of Henry II. 
— Itinerary through Wales — Character of the North of England 
historians — Simeon of Durham — Ailred of Rievaulx — William of 
Newburgh — Roger of Hoveden — Chronicle of Melrose — Walter 
Hemingburgh — The Chronicle of Lanercost. 

At this stage in our narrative it seems right to 
draw attention to some new influences which began 
to tell upon historical literature under the Norman 
kings, and prevailed a long time after. 

The encouragement which learning had received 
at the court of Henry I. of England, the king so 
honourably known in history by the surname of 
Beauclerc, continued to yield fruit for some time 



156 lEarlg ©Jjromckrg of lEnglanti. 

after his death. His natural son Robert, Earl of 
Gloucester, became the patron of letters in his 
place; and it is a striking fact that through the 
stormy period that ensued, authors looked up to 
him as their friend and benefactor. To him 
William of Malmesbury dedicated both his earlier 
and his later history, and it was in compliance with 
his request that the latter work was undertaken. 
The terms in which William of Malmesbury ac- 
knowledges the earl's patronage are honourable 
alike to the writer and the person addressed. " You 
condescend," he said, " to honour with your notice 
those literary characters who are kept in obscurity, 
either by the malevolence of fame, or the slender- 
ness of their fortune. And, as our nature inclines 
us not to condemn in others what we approve in 
ourselves, therefore men of learning find in you 
manners congenial to their own ; for, without the 
slightest indication of moroseness, you regard them 
with kindness, admit them with complacency, and 
dismiss them with regret. Indeed, the greatness of 
your fortune has made no difference in you, except 
that your beneficence can now almost keep pace 
with your inclination." 

This was a truly graceful compliment ; but it 
was exceeded by another veiy celebrated author, 
who likewise dedicated his work to Earl Robert. 
It cannot be doubted, however, that the language 
used by Geoffrey of Monmouth in presenting to his 
patron his History of the Kings of Britain, was 
the result of artful and studied flattery. Geoffrey 



fficoffwg of JHonmoutfj. 157 

of Monmouth modestly disclaims the honours of 
original authorship. He is perhaps the first of 
those ingenious romancers who profess to be only 
translating out of some other language works really 
composed by themselves. His friend Walter, 
Archdeacon of Oxford, he says, had lent him a 
very ancient book in the British tongue, containing 
the whole early history of the British nation ; and 
at the archdeacon's request, though he, Geoffrey, 
had not made a study of fine language, he had 
been induced to translate it into Latin. He had 
not adorned it with rhetorical flourishes, which 
might only have served to distract attention from 
the history. But perhaps the work in consequence 
was rather bald and unattractive. " To you, there- 
fore," he says, " Robert, Earl of Gloucester, this 
work humbly sues for the favour of being so cor- 
rected by your advice that it may not be thought 
to be the poor offspring of Geoffrey of Monmouth, 
but when polished by your refined wit and judg- 
ment, the production of him who had Henry, the 
glorious King of England, for his father, and whom 
we see an accomplished scholar and philosopher, as 
well as a brave soldier and expert commander ; so 
that Britain with joy acknowledges that in you she 
possesses another Henry." 

The History which Geoffrey thus succeeded 
in palming off upon the world under such dis- 
tinguished patronage, is in truth one of the most 
extraordinary works of art that the Middle Ages 
ever succeeded in producing. Of mythical tales 



158 lEarb ©Tjvontclers of lEnghntu 

and curious legends there was certainly no lack in 
those days ; but the fabrication of a long consecu- 
tive history, to fill up a gap or form a prelude to 
the authentic annals of a nation, was something 
altogether new. Yet the story was so wonderfully 
told, the invention was so admirable, and the 
marvels related appealed so strongly to the imagi- 
nation, that the world for ages after seems to have 
been at a loss what to make of it. It was not easy, 
even at the first, for a man of any judgment to be 
a thorough believer ; but it required some boldness, 
even after centuries had passed away, to dispute 
the authority of fictions which owed their vitality in 
the first instance to Geoffrey's imaginative pen. 

Very soon after its first appearance the book 
was translated into several languages. It was 
versified by two popular poets in Norman French, 
and by another in English. The stories of King 
Arthur became renowned throughout Christendom, 
and were augmented by continual additions. 
Romances without end were woven upon the same 
original text. " Indeed," as Sir Thomas Hardy 
remarks, " it is hardly going beyond bounds to say 
that there is scarcely an European tale of chivalry 
down to the sixteenth century that is not derived, 
directly or indirectly, from Geoffrey of Monmouth. 
If he had never written, our literature would not, in 
all probability, have been graced by the exquisite 
dramas of Lear and Cymbeline ; and much of the 
materials which he has woven into his work would 
no doubt have perished." 



dfooffwg of J&onmour]}. 159 

Geoffrey, it has been supposed, was a native of 
the place after which he was called. That he was 
so, however, is by no means certain, as the surname 
is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that he was 
Archdeacon of Monmouth. Very little is known 
about his life, except that he held this dignity, and 
that he was promoted in 1152 to the bishopric of 
St. Asaph, which he could only have held for a 
very brief period, as his successor was elected in 
1 1 54- But it is quite clear from the nature of his 
writings that he was a Welshman who sought to 
invest the early history of his nation with a glory 
and an interest far surpassing that of the Anglo- 
Saxon annals. How far he was assisted in the 
process by existing traditions and legends it is 
perhaps in vain to speculate ; but it is not very easy 
to regard his work as a mere collection, or even, as 
what it professes to be, a mere translation from 
a British original. 

The truth evidently is that as the Welsh people 
came more in contact with Norman civilization, the 
Celtic imagination was fired with the thought of 
their own proud position among the inhabitants of 
Britain. They alone were the true descendants of 
the race that had possessed the island before Julius 
Caesar landed. They had their own princes, their 
own laws, and their own legends, reaching far back 
beyond the era of Roman history itself. The 
Welsh to this day are great genealogists, who love 
to trace their pedigrees back to a very remote 
period. There are also among them great linguists, 



160 Icarlj) ©Drontckrg of lEnglanti. 

who pursue the etymology of words with a zeal 
perhaps even greater than the philologists of other 
nations. It was, therefore, a problem for Welshmen 
more than for any other people to discover the 
origin of the name of Britain, and to tell how the 
island was first peopled. The name of Britain was 
derived from Brutus, and this Brutus was a great- 
grandson of ^Eneas, the hero of Virgil's epic. The 
adventures of Brutus, as recorded by Geoffrey, are 
certainly not less wonderful than those of his 
supposed ancestor in the ^Eneid. Driven, with a 
little band of followers, out of Italy, Greece, and 
Mauritania successively, notwithstanding prodigies 
of valour performed in each of these countries, he 
is directed by an oracle to seek out an island lying 
beyond Gaul in the Western main, where he should 
found a second Troy, and where his descendants 
should be kings of the whole earth. He accordingly 
passes through Aquitaine, ravaging the country, and 
having various conflicts with native kings. At last 
he sails into Britain, inhabited then by none but a 
few giants, whom he and his companion, Corineus, 
delighted to encounter ; and having gained com- 
plete possession of the island, he founds his new 
Troy on the banks of the Thames. It was by a 
corruption of the original name, we are informed, 
that new Troy became afterwards Trinovantum; 
and, at a later date still, after it had been fortified 
by King Lud, the brother of King Cassivelaunus, 
who reigned in Britain when Julius Caesar landed, 
it obtained from him the name of Kaer-Lud, or 



ffieoffreg of JWonmoutf). 161 

Lud's-town, which, of course, the reader quite 
understands to have been the original form of 
London. 

Such is the beginning of this marvellous history, 
which becomes even more marvellous as it pro- 
ceeds ; and how it could ever have been regarded 
as serious, especially since the days of printing, 
when books have become more generally accessible, 
is the greatest marvel of all. The circumstantial 
account given of Brutus and all the long line of his 
successors might indeed well deceive uncritical 
readers in an age accustomed to believe in wonder- 
ful and miraculous legends ; but apart altogether 
from the extraordinary character of the things 
related, there was always much to shake the faith 
of any one who was tolerably well read in the 
history of other nations. Not only does the native 
king Cassivelaunus twice drive back Julius Cfesar 
from the shores of Britain before the conquest of 
the island is effected, but more than one British 
king subdues continental countries, and among 
others, the great King Arthur subdues Denmark, 
Norway, Aquitaine, and Gaul, without leaving the 
faintest traces of the achievement in the annals or 
literature of any other nation. Grotesque attempts 
are moreover made in some places to dovetail 
Roman history into the narrative, or to modify it 
in such a way as to augment the glory of the 
Britons. Thus the story of Brennus, the Gaul, 
who sacked the city of Rome, is turned to strange 
account. Geoffrey claims this achievement for 

ENG. M 



1 62 lEarlg ©fwntclerg of lEnglant). 

Brennius, a British king, who had first conquered 
Gaul, and he otherwise absurdly perverts the story 
by making Porsena one of the Roman consuls who 
sued to him for peace. 

But how a people, possessed of such an ancient 
history, preserved, as it would seem, by their own 
historians, could have been aware of contemporary 
events in distant regions in some of the remotest 
periods, is perhaps the most wonderful thing of all. 
For we are assured that of the successors of 
Brutus, one was contemporary with the prophet 
Samuel ; that Ebraucus built the city of York, or 
Kaer-Ebrauc, " about the time that David reigned in 
Judea and Sylvius Latinus in Italy, and that Gad, 
Nathan, and Asaph prophesied in Israel ; " that 
Bladud built the city of Bath, and made hot baths 
in it about the time when Elijah prayed it might 
not rain. This attempt to synchronise the fabulous 
British history with the Biblical and other records 
is, we need not say, as full of impossibilities as all 
the rest. The whole narrative is, indeed, from 
beginning to end, a tissue of absurdities. 

That speculative etymologies had much to do 
with its fabrication is clearly shown not only by 
the instances of Brutus giving his name to Britain 
and an equally mythical King Lud to London, but 
by a good number of other cases. King Lud was 
evidently invented to account for Ludgate rather 
than for London, but his name only required a little 
manipulation to make him godfather to the English 
metropolis itself. Ebraucus in the same way founds 



(Seoffrqj of i&onmoutl). 163 

Eboracum or York, Belinus erects Billingsgate, and 
Leicester, which we are told was originally Leircestre, 
owed its name and origin to Leir, the King Lear 
whose story was dramatised by Shakespeare. But 
these and other things, being introduced into the 
narrative v/ith all seriousness, yet as mere incidental 
facts, have such a very plausible appearance that 
we are reminded somewhat of the description of 
Laputa and the grave comments therein contained, 
as to the origin and etymology of the name of the 
island. 

Nothing, indeed, more resembles the imaginative 
creations of Dean Swift in the consistency with 
which they are carried out through the details of a 
long narrative than this British history of Geoffrey 
of Monmouth. The Trojan fable is not merely the 
starting point of the story. It reappears at in- 
tervals throughout the narrative, and is boldly 
placed in the light of a well-known fact recognized 
in former days by the whole civilized world. Julius 
Caesar pauses upon the Gallic coast before he 
ventures on the invasion of Britain, and fixes his 
eyes upon the ocean. The island is visible to him 
in the distance across the Channel. " In truth," he 
says, "we Romans and Britons have the same 
origin, since both are descended from the Trojan 
race. Our first father, after the destruction of 
Troy, was ^Eneas ; theirs Brutus, whose father was 
Sylvius, the son of Ascanius, the son of ^Eneas. 
But I am deceived if they are not much degene- 
rated from us," and so forth. The idea of Julius 



164 lEatlg CPIjrojuclerg of lEnglanli. 

Caesar owning a common ancestry with the bar- 
barians whom he invaded, and speaking of them 
thus, as the kinsmen of his own people, has in it 
something peculiarly ridiculous. 

Yet such was the popularity of Geoffrey's 
History, so widely was it read, so universally 
talked about, and so credulously accepted by the 
many, that from this time the Trojan origin of the 
British people came to be regarded in the light of 
an established fact. Ethnology had not yet become 
a science, and if any one doubted the hypothesis, 
no one, at least, was able to confute it. In course 
of time Brutus fairly took his place among the 
historical personages of antiquity. Learned monks 
in their cloisters sat down to write the annals of 
their country, and began, as a matter of course, 
with Brutus. A whole series of chronicles of a 
later age, copied one from another with variations, 
derive from this the common epithet of The 
Brute ; and long after the revival of letters and the 
printing press had given the world better means of 
judging, learned antiquaries were still found to 
dispute with each other as to the reality of this 
shadowy hero. 

Thus it is impossible to do justice to the his- 
torical literature of the Middle Ages without taking 
into account the extraordinary influence which 
Geoffrey's History exercised for a long time on 
the historical imagination. In a more legitimate 
sphere, indeed, its influence survives even at the 
present day. From Geoffrey of Monmouth, as we 



(Seoffteg of J&onmoutJ). 165 

have already indicated, Shakespeare obtained the 
story of King Lear ; and from the same source are 
derived the prophecies of Merlin, and the fabled 
history of King Arthur, which have supplied poets 
and romancers with endless materials for their art 
from the days of Sir Thomas Malory to those of 
Spenser, and from the days of Spenser to those of 
Tennyson. 

But this bold invasion of the province of history 
by the genius of romance, was a thing at that time 
so unprecedented, indeed so utterly inconceivable 
to most readers, that there seemed no alternative 
between accepting it for what it professed to be, 
and denouncing it as an impudent fabrication. The 
whole narrative stood in marked and violent contrast 
to the sober histories penned by monastic annalists. 
The very first words of the introduction were such 
as would at once put a modern reader on his guard. 
" Whilst occupied with many and various studies," 
says the author, " I happened to light upon the 
History of tlie Kings of Britain, and wondered 
that in the account which Gildas and Bede, in their 
elegant histories, had given of them, I found nothing 
said of those kings who lived here before the Incarna- 
tion of Christ, nor of Arthur, and many others who 
succeeded after the Incarnation ; though their actions 
deserved immortal fame, and were also celebrated 
by many nations, being, as it weie, inscribed upon 
their minds, and pleasantly reported from memory." 
The whole thing was an attempt to supply from 
imagination and legend a record of the pre-historic 



1 66 lEarlj) ©Jirontclcrg of lEnglant). 

times that Bede and Gildas had left untouched. 
Not that the entire narrative is to be regarded as 
due to the invention of a single man ; for both 
Brutus and Arthur had become popular heroes long 
before, and Welsh bards had doubtless vied with 
each other in producing life-like stories of the 
mythical ancestors of recorded British kings, whose 
descendants were yet looked upon as princes. But 
Geoffrey had woven together with consummate art 
a multitude of things, some part of which he had 
extracted from the writings of an old author called 
Nennius, some part he may have listened to with 
eagerness from the lips of native Welshmen, and 
some part he had himself invented in a similar 
spirit. It was certainly a very different kind of 
history, and gathered from quite a different region, 
from the histories that had been penned in cloisters. 
For Geoffrey, it must be remembered, was not a 
monk ; he was an archdeacon. The age of pure 
monastic history is now at an end, when the secular 
clergy, as they are called, clergymen who live 
habitually in the world, and have continual inter- 
course with all classes of men, take up the pen and 
write. Endowed with the same love of letters as 
their monastic brethren, and compelled by social 
intercourse to study the various humours of men 
in a way for which the discipline of the convent 
afforded no training whatever, the foremost eccle- 
siastics of the day were distinguished by their wit 
and sociable feeling quite as much as by their 
learning. And these qualities shine remarkably in 



fficofrcg of J&onmoutf). 167 

their writings. The monks recorded the actions of 
men ; ecclesiastics painted their heroes to the very- 
life. The dignity of archdeacon seems to have been 
the most favourable position in the Church for the 
cultivation of letters. Henry of Huntingdon was 
an archdeacon ; so was Geoffrey of Monmouth. 
The most lively writer of the succeeding age was 
Giraldus Cambrensis, Archdeacon of Brecknock. 
His witty friend Walter Mapes, author of many 
humorous and satirical writings both in prose and 
verse, and also, it would seem, of the earliest 
Romances of the Round Table, was Archdeacon of 
Oxford.* They were all admirable observers of 
men, knew thoroughly what human nature was, 
admired it, sympathized with it, and quizzed it in 
a way which the recluse in his cell must have con- 
sidered bordering upon levity. Never had ink 
and parchment been lowered to such trivial uses. 

Imagination has from this time more influence 
over historical writing than it ever had before. But 
it was not to be expected that the first great effort of 
the imaginative school would be allowed in that age, 
to pass altogether unrebuked. A northern monk, 
named William of Newburgh, denounced with in- 
dignation the mendacity of Geoffrey's History. 
It was a great merit, he observed, in the work of 
Gildas, notwithstanding the badness of his style 
that he did not fear to speak the truth of his own 



* Mapes, however, was probably an author long before he was 
archdeacon. If the date given by Sir Thomas Hardy (Catalogue, ii. 
488) be right, he was only made an archdeacon in 1196. 



r68 lEarlg ©ftroniclersJ of lEnglanD. 

people, of whom he had little good to record. 
According to Gildas, they were neither valiant in 
war nor faithful in peace. " But now," he adds, 
" a certain writer has appeared in our times, who, 
to wipe away these blots on the character of the 
Britons, composes ridiculous figments about them, 
and with impudent vanity extols their valour above 
that of the Macedonians and the Romans, This 
man is named Geoffrey, with the surname of 
Arthur, because he has dressed up in a Latin garb 
with the honest name of history stories of Arthur, 
derived from early British fables, and augmented 
by his own ingenuity; and with still greater daring, 
he has published as genuine and trustworthy 
prophecies the most fallacious divinations of a 
certain Merlin, to which also he has certainly added 
very much of his own while translating them into 
Latin." 

Notwithstanding the popularity of Geoffrey's 
History there cannot be a doubt that these 
strictures were felt to be just by readers possessed 
of any discrimination. On the other hand, they 
have been attributed by later writers to a feeling 
of spite against the Welsh people. Such a feeling, 
however, could not have actuated Giraldus Cam- 
brensis, himself a Welshman, though of Norman 
descent, and in his own way possessed of quite as 
lively an imagination as Geoffrey himself. And 
not only does Giraldus, in the course of his writings, 
distinctly speak of Geoffrey's History as fabulous, 
and take pains to set aside some of his fancied 






(Kraltius ©amfcrenste. 169 

etymologies, but he evidently agrees with William 
of Newburgh in regarding the work as an impudent 
imposture ; in proof of which he relates a singular 
story of a Welshman named Melerius, who had an 
extraordinary familiarity with unclean spirits. The 
man used to see the spirits equipped as hunters, 
with horns hung from their necks. He knew when 
any one spoke falsely, for he saw the devil leaping 
and exulting upon the liar's tongue. Although he 
could not read, he could set his finger on a passage 
in any book that contained a falsehood, and in walk- 
ing through the dormitory of a religious house, he 
could tell the bed of a monk who was not truly 
devout. " If the evil spirits oppressed him too much, 
the Gospel of St. John was placed on his bosom, 
when, like birds, they immediately vanished ; but 
when that book was removed, and the History of 
the Britons, by Geoffrey Arthur, was substituted in 
its place, they instantly reappeared in greater 
numbers, and remained a longer time than usual 
on his body and on the book." 

There is nothing like confuting fictions by facts ; 
but, somehow, even this remarkable manifestation 
of its falsehood did not utterly destroy the credit 
of Geoffrey's History. Perhaps, as the modern 
reader will conjecture, the authority of Giraldus 
could not be expected to carry much more weight 
than that of the author whom he so condemned. 
In point of fact, though in a different way, Giraldus 
had often taxed the credulity of his readers every 
whit as much as Geoffrey of Monmouth himself 



170 lEarlg ©ijromclerg of lEnglanti. 

Giraldus, in fact, was, just like Geoffrey, a very- 
imaginative Welshman, a lover of wonders, and a 
retailer of extraordinary stories. For some of 
these he had been seriously taken to task by a 
contemporary, under whose criticisms he evidently 
felt very uncomfortable. He had talked of a wolf 
holding conversations with a priest, and giving 
evidence that he was a man transformed into an 
animal. He had spoken of an island in which men 
never died, and of another in which no female 
creature could live. He had described a great 
many other things almost equally absurd. When, 
pointing to instances such as these, his adversaries 
attempted to cast discredit on his writings, Giraldus 
quoted the example of Balaam's ass to show that 
they were not beyond the limit of possibility ; but, 
not much liking to rest on that defence, he added 
that he did not vouch for all that he had reported 
as if it was undoubted truth. He was not himself 
such a firm believer as to entertain no sort of 
misgivings, and he would neither maintain the 
facts where they had not come within his know- 
ledge, nor plainly admit that they were fictitious. 

It seems a little curious that to such a man the 
fictions in Geoffrey's History should have been so 
unpalatable. But, in point of fact, they were not 
so in all things. Giraldus himself believed that 
Brutus was the ancestor of the Britons, and that 
Loegria, the Welsh name of England, was derived 
from Locrinus, the eldest son of Brutus. He believed 
even in King Arthur. In all that tended to exalt 



(SxitalDug <£amfi«nste. 171 

the antiquity of the Welsh nation and confer dis- 
tinction upon their ancestry, he seems to have 
acquiesced most readily ; but some of the deeds 
related of King Arthur were just a little too much. 
It would be hard to get well-educated men to 
believe things so utterly at variance with received 
history, and a scholar like Giraldus could not help 
feeling sorely that they tended to bring his nation 
into disrepute. 

This Giraldus, however, has an interest for us on 
his own account altogether apart from what he 
says of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Having left us an 
autobiography, we know more about him than we 
do about most mediaeval historians ; and as his 
personal history is very much interwoven with 
everything else that he wrote, a brief sketch of 
his life, in connection with his writings, will best 
set forth what we have to say of him. 

He was born in the year 1 147, at the Castle of 
Manorbeer, in Pembrokeshire, pleasantly situated 
on the coast, about five miles west of Tenby. He 
himself gives a delightful picture of his birthplace, 
which those who have seen it can easily believe 
was not overdrawn. For the castle of Manorbeer 
still stands, a very perfect ruin ; and, though the 
orchard and the fishponds are gone, in which 
Giraldus so delighted, the situation is still a charm- 
ing one. The following is his description of the 
place : — 

. " The castle called Maenor Pyrr, that is the 
mansion of Pyrrhus " — (Welsh etymology again, 



T/ 2 lEailg ©ijrontclerg of lEnglaui). 



striving to work out a fabulous history !) — " is about 
three miles distant from the castle of Pembroke. 
It is conspicuous for its turrets and battlements, 
and stands on the top of a hill, extending on the 
western side towards a seaport. On the north side 
is an excellent fishpond close to its walls, remark- 
able for its extent and the depth of its waters ; and 
on the same side a very beautiful orchard, shut in 
here by the fishpond and there by a grove, remark- 
able for the projection of its rocks and the height 
of its hazel trees. On the right hand of the 
promontory, between the castle and the church, 
near the site of a very large pond and a mill, a 
rivulet of never-failing water finds its way into a 
valley, made sandy by the violence of the winds. 
To the west, and at some distance from the castle, 
the Severn, in a winding angle, enters the Irish 
Sea ; and the southern rocks, if they bent a little 
further towards the north, would form an admirable 
harbour. From this point you may see almost all 
the ships from Britain, driven by the east wind 
towards Ireland, bravely daring the inconstancy of 
the winds and the furious blind rage of the sea. 
The country is well supplied with corn, with fish, 
and with wine imported ; and, better than all, from 
its nearness to Ireland, it enjoys a salubrious air. 
Demetia, indeed, with its seven cantreds, is the 
most beautiful as well as the most powerful district 
of Wales ; Pembroke is the finest part of Demetia ; 
and the place I have just described is the most 
delightful part of Pembroke. It is evident, there- 



(£tral!)u# ©am&rengtg. 173 

fore, that Maenor Pyrr is the pleasantest spot in 
Wales ; and the author may be pardoned for saying 
so much in praise of his native soil and his own 
birthplace." 

From the country of his birth Giraldus derived 
the surname of Cambrensis, or the Welshman, by 
which he is popularly known. By his enemies, on 
the other hand, he was sometimes called Sylvester, 
or the Savage. But his family name was De Barri, 
indicating a Norman descent by the preposition 
" de," though Barri was only the name of an island 
in the Bristol Channel, a little way off the coast of 
Wales. By the mother's side he was descended 
from the celebrated Nesta, mistress of Henry I., 
and daughter of Rhys ap Tudor, prince of South 
W 7 ales. Nesta, by her marriage with Gerald de 
Windsor, Castellan of Pembroke, became the 
ancestor of the long line of the Fitzgeralds, and 
also gave birth to a daughter named Angharad, 
who married William de Barri, and was the mother 
of Giraldus. He was the youngest son of that 
family, named, no doubt, after his grandfather the 
Castellan ; and being allied in blood with the first 
conquerors of Ireland, a country which he himself 
visited, he wrote a very admirable history of its 
conquest, besides what he called a Topography of 
the island, which, however, is more in the nature 
of a general account of its natural history and 
inhabitants, invaluable to historians of later times 
as the only vivid picture of Ireland and the Irish 
that the Middle Ages have left behind them. 



174 ^arfg ©&wn(clttjs of ?EnglanO. 

His education was committed to his uncle, David 
Fitzgerald, Bishop of St. David's, with whom he 
remained till he reached his twentieth year. From 
a child he seems to have displayed great partiality 
for the Church, insomuch that his father was accus- 
tomed to call him "the little bishop.''" He was 
evidently precocious, and must have gained from 
his earliest youth an acquaintance with Latin 
authors, quite unusual in that age ; for his writings, 
interlarded as they are with innumerable quota- 
tions, show a very intimate and extensive familiarity 
with the ancient classics. In his twentieth year he 
was sent to pursue his studies at Paris, where he 
attained high distinction. He returned to England 
in 1 172, being then in his twenty-fifth year, soon 
after the murder of Thomas a Becket. Four years 
later an event occurred which may be called the 
turning-point in his life. The see of St. David's 
fell vacant by his uncle's death. Giraldus had 
been meanwhile made Archdeacon of Brecknock, 
an office in which he displayed unusual zeal in 
supporting the bishop's authority, and punishing 
irregularities. It was remembered by the Welsh 
that St. David's had once been an archbishopric, 
and they were anxious to restore its metropolitan 
dignity, and make the Church in Wales once more 
independent of the see of Canterbury. The 
chapter fixed their eyes upon Giraldus, as a man 
whose energy and abilities were likely to advance 
this cause, and elected him without the king's con- 
sent. Giraldus himself was alarmed at their 



(Etratous ©amfcrenste. 175 

temerity, but the object was as dear to his heart as 
to that of any Churchman of the principality ; 
indeed, rather more so ; and though he would have 
renounced the election as too hasty, he had already 
drawn upon himself and the chapter the fierce 
indignation and jealousy of an ever-watchful and 
politic king. 

The chapter soon were humbled, and made every 
effort to appease the king's displeasure. The 
election was cancelled, and Peter de Leia, prior of 
Wenlock, was chosen in place of Giraldus, who now 
returned to Paris, and gave himself up to the study 
of civil and canon law. The martyrdom of Becket 
had more than ever brought into prominence the 
old, ever-recurring question of the jurisdiction of 
Church and State, and Giraldus was full of it. He 
lectured, according to his own account, to overflow- 
ing audiences ; and we may well believe him. He 
was a man full of fervour, and his after life showed 
that he had the courage of his opinions. But owing 
to the irregularity with which he received his 
revenues, he returned to England in 1180. He 
repaired to his archdeaconry, where his super- 
abundant zeal brought him naturally into collision 
with his diocesan, Peter de Leia, a prelate as lax in 
enforcing needful discipline, as he was indifferent 
about the claims of St. David's to the primacy of 
Wales. Giraldus had no toleration for a bishop 
who would not excommunicate the most notorious 
offenders, lest he should find the tails of all his 
cows cut off. "Let him sell his cows," said 



176 lEarlg ©JjromckrjS of lEttglant), 

Giraldus, " or remove them to some safer spot, and 
do that justice which it is his office to do." The 
poor bishop was soon weary of remonstrances and 
dropped the reins of government altogether. He 
absented himself from his diocese, and appointed 
Giraldus administrator of the see in his place ; but 
ere long, some differences arising between him and 
the chapter, he ventured in his absence to sus- 
pend certain archdeacons and canons ; on which 
Giraldus immediately threw up his appointment, 
and, contrary to the principle which he was so 
anxious to uphold, appealed to the Archbishop of 
Canterbury against his diocesan. He was success- 
ful, and the bishop's sentence was reversed. 

In 1 1 84, Giraldus seems to have made a favour- 
able impression upon the king, who invited him to 
court, and made him one of his own chaplains. 
Henry was glad to employ his services in the 
pacification of Wales ; but for politic reasons he 
left them poorly rewarded, and Giraldus bitterly 
complained of the king's ingratitude. The king, 
however, appointed him preceptor to his youngest 
son, Prince John, with whom, in 1185, he went into 
Ireland in the capacity of secretary. The young 
man was only in his eighteenth year, and had not 
yet fully developed that base and selfish character 
which he afterwards left behind him as king ; so 
that Giraldus had some hopes of him. Still, he 
tells us that he was prone to vice, rude to monitors, 
and placed no restraint whatever upon his passions. 
The best that could be hoped was that, after sowing 



CSiraliJuis ©amfaengfe. 177 

his wild oats, he would improve in maturer years ; 
and Giraldus did entertain this hope most fer- 
vently. 

This visit of Giraldus to Ireland occasioned the 
composition of his Topographia Hibemice, the 
earliest, and perhaps the most attractive of all his 
works. So, at least, the modern reader will pro- 
bably regard it, though for some reason it met with 
an unfavourable reception from many of his con- 
temporaries. Readers were not in those days 
students of nature, and the learned seem to have 
thought it a waste of writing materials to describe 
the rivers, lakes, and mountains, birds, beasts, 
and fishes, and the almost equal brutal human 
inhabitants of a barbarous island, their habits and 
modes of life. Giraldus, however, who was never 
deficient in self-confidence, felt sure that his book 
would live. " He had devoted," he said, at intervals 
of leisure, three years to his Topography, and two 
years more to his Vaticinal History of the Conquest 
of the Island, — "works which," as he quietly 
observes, "will be read by posterity, although 
they offend men of the present generation : and 
though carped at now, will be profitable in future 
times." 

Giraldus, in truth, had a fine eye for nature, and 
he was justified in believing that his observations 
would be found valuable in after ages. The 
singular thing is that so acute an observer should 
have laid himself open, as we have seen, to the 
attacks of his opponents by a credulity on some 

ENG. N 



178 3E*tlg> ©IjrontcUrg of lEnglanD. 

points altogether extraordinary ; for though he did 
not think it necessary to attribute the absence of 
noxious reptiles in Ireland to the achievements of 
St. Patrick, there was apparently nothing of the 
nature of a prodigy reported to him by others to 
which he was not ready to attach some degree 
of credit. Out of three " distinctions," or sections, 
into which the work is divided, the second is entirely 
devoted to things of this sort ; the common sense 
of the author is confined to the other two. But the 
natural history of Ireland, the miracles of Ireland, 
and the people of Ireland, are the three great sub- 
jects of the book, and it must be admitted that he 
does full justice to them all. 

We may, however, observe that superstitions, 
though by no means a noble subject of contempla- 
tion, are in themselves a matter of historical study, 
which we cannot afford altogether to neglect. It 
is not from the sober, unimaginative historian, that 
we gain much light as to the real forces that 
governed the spirits of men in the wars and tumults 
and rebellions, of which history is full. But the 
credulous writer is a transparent medium through 
which we can discern things otherwise invisible. 
Special incidents, too, which led to no material 
results in the great drama of events, have occasion- 
ally a historical significance in this respect by no 
means to be despised. Take, for example, the 
following instance from the Vaticinal History of 
Giraldus. Henry II., on his return from Ireland, 
landed at St. David's Bay. 



ffitrafoug ©amfcrengfe. 



!79 



" On landing he proceeded to St. David's with great de- 
votion, in the guise of a pilgrim, on foot, and staff in hand, 
and was met by the canons of the cathedral in solemn pro- 
cession, who received him with due honour and reverence at 
the White Gate. While the solemn procession was orderly- 
passing onward, a Welsh woman suddenly threw herself at 
the king's feet, and made some complaint against the bishop 
of the diocese, which was explained to the king by an in- 
terpreter. Receiving, however, no redress, the woman be- 
came abusive, and raising her voice, and loudly clapping her 
hands, she repeatedly shouted, in the presence of all the 
company, ' Avenge us this day, Lechlawar, avenge our race 
and nation on this man !' And being stopped and thrust 
forth by the people of the country who understood British 
{i.e. Welsh), she still continued to vociferate the same words 
with increased violence, alluding to a certain prophecy of 
Merlin's, which, though current among the vulgar, was not 
authentic, to the purport that a king of England, returning 
through St. David's after the conquest of Ireland, where he 
had been wounded by a man with a bloody hand, should die 
on Lechlawar. For this was the name given to a stone which 
was placed across the stream, dividing the cemetery of 
St. David's from the north side of the church, to form a 
bridge. The stone was of beautiful marble, and the surface 
was worn smooth by the feet of those who passed over it. 
Its length was ten feet, its breadth six, and it was one foot 
thick. In the British (Welsh) language the word Lechlawar 
means ' the speaking stone ; ' for there is an ancient tradi- 
tion that on some occasion when a corpse was carried over 
it the stone spoke at that very moment, but in the effort 
cracked in the middle, which crack is still to be seen. This 
gave rise to a barbarous superstition, which from that time 
to the present day forbids any dead bodies being carried to 
their burial over the bridge. The king coming to the stone 
paused for a moment, having, perhaps, heard the prophecy 
mentioned ; but having glanced keenly at it, he summoned 
up his resolution, and without further delay, walked across. 



iBo 1Earl;D ©j&romcfctg of lEnglanti. 

Then turning back and looking at the stone, he said with 
some indignation, ' Who now will have any faith in that liar, 
Merlin? 5 " 

Nothing, perhaps, requires greater intrepidity 
than boldly and knowingly to confront a popular 
superstition. It will be observed that Giraldus 
himself, in this case, though he discredits the 
prophecy, saves the credit of the supposed prophet 
Merlin, by the remark that this prophecy was not 
authentic. In another place where he tells the 
same story, he adds, that one of the bystanders, in 
answer to the king's imputation on Merlin's sooth- 
saying, cried out, " Thou art not that king by whom 
Ireland is to be conquered, or of whom Merlin pro- 
phesied ! " Superstition certainly dies hard. 

The Vaticinal History of the Conquest of Ire- 
land, from which the above extract is taken, was 
written, as we are informed by the author, two 
years after the completion of the Topography. 
The expedition to which it relates was one in which 
Giraldus naturally took peculiar interest ; for a 
large number of its captains and leaders were 
kinsmen of his own. And it must be owned that a 
more careful, accurate, and graphic history does not 
exist. The whole story of the conquest is related 
in the exact order of the events themselves, with a 
vigour and clearness, and, generally speaking, with 
a simplicity, that make the work both easy and 
delightful reading, even at this day. The only 
exceptions to simplicity consist in classical quota- 
tions, and long imaginary speeches of Irish and 



€5tralDug @am5an#te. iSr 

Norman chieftains, after the manner of Livy and 
other historians. But to atone for these defects, 
we have personal portraits of Strongbow, and of 
almost all the principal leaders on either side, with 
estimates of their characters which bring the men 
vividly before us. In no other mediaeval historian, 
certainly, do we find writing so animated or so 
picturesque. 

Irish chieftains and Norman barons, however, 
cannot be expected to interest the general reader, 
without some detailed account of their actions. As 
a specimen, therefore, of this style of treatment in 
Giraldus, we will give his portrait of King Henry II. 
himself: — 

"Henry II., king of England, had a reddish complexion, 
rather dark, and a large round head. His eyes were grey, 
bloodshot, and flashed in anger. He had a fiery counte- 
nance, his voice was tremulous, and his neck a little bent 
forward ; but his chest was broad, and his arms were muscular. 
His body was fleshy, and he had an enormous paunch, rather 
by the fault of nature than from gross feeding. For his diet 
was temperate, and indeed in all things, considering he was 
a prince, he was moderate and even parsimonious. In order 
to reduce and cure, as far as possible, this natural tendency 
and defect, he waged a continual war, so to speak, with his 
own belly, by taking immoderate exercise. For in time of 
war, in which he was almost always engaged, he took little 
rest, even during the intervals of business and action. Times 
of peace were no seasons of repose and indulgence to him, 
for he was immoderately fond of the chase, and devoted him- 
self to it with excessive ardour. At the first dawn of day he 
would mount a fleet horse, and indefatigably spend the day 
in riding through the woods, penetrating the depths of forests, 
and crossing the ridges of hills. On his return home in the 



3EarIg ©hrcmtclerg of iEnglanD. 



evening he was seldom seen to sit down, either before he took 
his supper or after ; for notwithstanding his own great 
fatigue, he would weary all his court by being constantly on 
his legs. But it is one of the most useful rules in life, not to 
have too much of any one thing, and even medicine is not 
in itself perfect and always to be used. Even so it befol the 
king ; for he had frequent swellings in his legs and feet, in- 
creased much by his violent exercise on horseback, which 
added to his other complaints, and if they did not bring on 
serious disorders, at least hastened that which is the source 
of all, old age. In stature he may be reckoned among men 
of moderate height, which was not the case with either of his 
sons ; the two eldest being somewhat above the middle 
height, and the two youngest somewhat below. 

" When his mind was undisturbed, and he was not in an 
angry mood, he spoke with great eloquence, and, what was 
remarkable in those days, he was well learned. He was also 
affable, flexible, and facetious, and, however he smothered his 
inward feelings, second to no one in courtesy. Withal, he 
was so clement a prince, that when he had subdued his 
enemies, he was overcome himself by his pity for them. 
Resolute in war and provident in peace, he so much feared 
the doubtful fortune of the former, that, as the comic poet 
writes, he tried all courses before he resorted to arms. Those 
whom he lost in battle he lamented with more than a prince's 
sorrow, having a more humane feeling for the soldiers who 
had fallen than for the survivors ; and bewailing the dead 
more than he cared for the living. In troublesome times no 
man was more courteous, and when all things were safe no 
man more harsh. Severe to the unruly, but clement to the 
humble ; hard towards his own household, but liberal to 
strangers : profuse abroad, but sparing at home ; those whom 
he once hated he would scarcely ever love, and from those 
he loved he seldom withdrew his regard. He was inordi- 
nately fond of hawking and hunting, whether his falcons 
stooped on their prey, or his sagacious hounds, quick of 
scent and swift of foot, pursued the chase. Would to God 



©traltutiS ©amrjrcngtg. 183 

he had been as zealous in his devotions as he was in his 
sports. 

" It is said that after the grievous dissensions between him 
and his sons, raised by their mother, he had no respect for 
the obligations of the most solemn treaties. True it is that 
from a certain natural inconstancy he often broke his word, 
preferring rather, when driven to straits, to forfeit his promise 
than depart from his purpose. In all his doings he was 
provident and circumspect, and on this account he was some- 
times slack in the administration of justice, and, to his people's 
great cost, his decisions in all proceedings were dilatory. 
Both God and right demand that justice should be ad- 
ministered gratuitously ; yet all things were set to sale, and 
brought great wealth both to the clergy and laity ; but their 
end was like Gehazi's gains. 

" He was a great maker of peace, and kept it himself; a 
liberal almsgiver, and an especial benefactor to the Holy 
Land. He loved the humble, curbed the nobility, and trod 
down the proud ; filling the hungry with good things, and 
sending the rich empty away ; exalting the meek, and putting 
down the mighty from their seats. He ventured on many 
detestable usurpations in things belonging to God, and 
through a zeal for justice (but not according to knowledge), 
he joined the rights of the Church to those of the Crown, and 
therein confused them, in order to centre all in himself. 
Although he was the son of the Church, and received his 
crown from her hands, he either dissembled or forgot the 
sacramental unction. He could scarcely spare an hour to 
hear mass, and then he was more occupied in counsels and 
conversation about affairs of state than in his devotions. 
The revenues of the churches during their avoidance he drew 
into his own treasury, laying hands on that which belonged 
to Christ ; and he was always in fresh troubles and engaged 
in mighty wars, he expended all the money he could get, and 
lavished upon unrighteous soldiers what was due to the 
priests. In, his great prudence he devised many plans, which, 
nowever, did not all turn out according to his expectations ; 



1S4 lEarlg ©fironickrg of lEnglanl). 

but no great mishap occurred which did not originate in some 
trifling circumstance. 

" He was the kindest of fathers to his legitimate children 
during their childhood and youth, but as they advanced in 
years looked on them with an evil eye, treating them worse 
than a step-father ; and although he had such distinguished 
and illustrious sons, whether it was that he would not have 
them prosper too fast, or whether they were ill-deserving, he 
could never bear to think of them as his successors. And as 
human prosperity can neither be permanent nor perfect, such 
was the exquisite malice of fortune against this king, that 
where he should have received comfort he met with opposi- 
tion ; where security, danger ; where peace, turmoil ; where 
support, ingratitude ; where quiet and tranquillity, disquiet 
and disturbance. Whether it happened from unhappy 
marriages, or for the punishment of the father's sins, there 
was never any good agreement either of the father with his 
sons, or of the sons with their parent, or between themselves." 

In no other mediaeval author do we meet with 
such minute and careful painting of persons and 
characters as this. 

Prince John returned to England in the winter 
of the same year in which he went to Ireland. 
The ill success of his expedition was attributed 
by Giraldus, not to the character of the commander, 
but to the cool response of Henry II. to the invi- 
tation of Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, to 
undertake a crusade for the liberation of the Holy 
City. It was a special honour, he thought, to the 
King of England to be solicited before any other 
prince to promote so noble an enterprise ; yet 
Henry in effect allowed the enemies of Christ to 
take possession of Jerusalem without raising a 



©irate ©amfirengfe. 185 

hand against them. Giraldus, however, for his 
part, had an opportunity of showing his own zeal 
a few years later. Meanwhile, he remained in 
Ireland collecting materials for his work for a few 
months after Prince John had left, and returned to 
Wales between Easter and Whitsuntide, 1186. 
Next year, having completed his Topography of 
Ireland, he gave a public reading of it before the 
university of Oxford, on three successive days, 
each section of the work (called in the scholastic 
language of the times a " distinction ") occupying 
a day to read. The reading was crowned each 
day by a sumptuous entertainment, given at the 
author's expense, — on the first day, to the poor 
people of the town, on the second to the most 
eminent doctors and students, on the third, to the 
other scholars, knights, and burgesses. Various 
are the ways by which authors in different ages 
have climbed to the temple of Fame ; and this was 
one of the ways seven hundred years ago. 

In 1 188, the king appeared to have repented his 
lukewarmness as to the fate of Jerusalem, and took 
the cross at Gisors in Normandy. Many followed 
his example, and Archbishop Baldwin was sent to 
preach the Crusade in Wales, accompanied by 
Ranulph de Glanville the Justiciary, and by Giraldus 
— a journey as remarkable in its way, and within its 
own sphere probably far more fruitful in results 
than any expedition to the Holy Land itself. 
Giraldus wrote an itinerary of the archbishop's 
progress. His presence by the side of the metro- 



iS6 lEarlg ©Iironkterg of iERglantJ. 

politan was doubtless itself a great means of 
soothing ancient jealousies ; and though some of 
the canons of St. David's appealed to Rhys ap 
Griffith to prevent the archbishop visiting their 
cathedral, the Welsh prince felt that he could not 
interrupt a journey undertaken with such an object. 
The progress began at New Radnor, where, after 
a sermon by the archbishop, explained to the 
Welsh by an interpreter, Giraldus himself first took 
the cross, and was followed in so doing by the 
Bishop of St. David's and by several Welsh princes 
and notables. The journey was pursued through 
Hay and Brecknock, Abergavenny, Usk and 
Caerleon ; then by the southern districts along the 
Bristol Channel to Pembroke and St. David's, and 
from thence northwards through Cardigan, to 
Carnarvon and Bangor. The Isle of Anglesea was 
next visited, and the whole of North Wales was after- 
wards traversed to Chester and Shrewsbury. Such 
a progress was a thing altogether unprecedented, 
and must have produced a deep impression. " It 
requires no effort of imagination," says Mr. Brewer,* 
"to conjure up the effects which an archbishop in 
the twelfth century, clothed in the majestic insignia 
of his high office, attended with the solemn and 
striking ceremonial belonging to the highest dignity 
in the hierarchy, fortified with papal bulls and regal 
authority, would exercise over a simple and half- 
civilized people, enthusiastic by nature, and re- 
markable for their subservience to the visible 

* Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, I. pref., p. xlix. 



SiraltiUiS @m\lxewi$. 1S7 

emblems of the spiritual power. As the solemn 
procession wended its way among the retired 
valleys and romantic mountains of South Wales, 
now with banner and crucifix emerging from some 
woody glade or picturesque ravine, now encamping 
on the bank of some fabled river, or skirting the 
straggling hamlet, the sermon in the open air from 
the patriarchal lips of the successor of St. Thomas, 
the hymn floating and undulating like a cloud of 
incense, the occasion, the motive, the tender 
thought of Jerusalem in captivity, of the daughter 
of Zion insulted by the Saracen, of Christ's living 
members put to shame ; all these mingling in one 
stream of pious enthusiasm, ardent faith, glory, 
passion and adventure, might have roused an 
imagination more callous and sluggish than that 
of the Welsh." 

To the little band engaged in the expedition 
there were, of course, hardships and difficulties to 
be encountered in so rugged a country ; but the 
archbishop, who seems to have been a man of 
considerable humour, made light of them. Having 
on one occasion worked his way with great diffi- 
culty through a steep valley and found a temporary 
resting-place, he sat down upon an oak that had 
been uprooted in a storm, and while he and all his 
followers were out of breath with their exertions, 
asked pleasantly if any one could kindly amuse 
the company by whistling a tune ? In answer to 
the general laugh he then bade them listen to the 
sweet notes that some particular bird was pouring 



isarlg CDftronkleriS of lEnglanti. 



forth in a wood close by. A little conversation 
then arose about the melody of birds in which 
some one remarked that the nightingale was never 
heard in Wales. " The nightingale," remarked the 
archbishop, " followed wise counsel and never came 
into Wales. We, who have penetrated and gone 
through it, have not been so well advised." It is 
worth pages of more solid matter to learn from 
these light touches of Giraldus how an archbishop 
preaching a crusade could indulge his wit in 
moments of relaxation. It was the innocent 
humour of a very upright and earnest man of 
whom Giraldus at the end of his work draws a very 
pleasing and admirable portrait. 

The Itinerary of Wales is discursive, and abounds 
in matter similar in character to that of the 
Topography of Ireland. Occasionally, indeed, the 
author repeats what he has said in the previous 
work, as in his remarkable and very accurate 
description of the salmon's mode of leaping. In 
another place, also, he gives a very interesting 
account of the beaver, an animal which even at 
that date had become rare in Wales, though it 
still frequented the valley of the Teivy. Of 
prodigies and miracles, too, the Itinerary contains 
abundance, and some of such a transparent 
character that the author's credulity becomes the 
more amazing. Thus we are gravely told about a 
stone in Anglesea resembling a human thigh, 
which, when carried away from its place to what- 
ever distance, always returned in the night-time of 



ffihraHiug ©amirengfe. 189 

its own accord. But apparently the last time its 
peculiar virtue had been tried was in the reign of 
Henry I., when Hugh, Earl of Chester, having 
gained possession of the island, ordered the stone 
to be fastened with strong iron chains to a larger 
stone and thrown into the sea. Next morning, of 
course, so ran the legend, it was found in its 
original position. " On which account," says 
Giraldus, "the earl issued a public edict that no 
one, from that time, should presume to move the 
stone from its place." A singularly unnecessary 
decree if the legend had been a true one ! 

The Itinerary contains also many graphic touches 
and incidental anecdotes, some of which have been 
turned to good account by historians and romancers, 
as the reader will doubtless remember in the fol- 
lowing instance : — 

" I have judged it proper to insert in this place an answer 
which Richard, king of the English, made to Fulke, a good 
and holy man, by whom God in these our days has wrought 
many signs in the kingdom of France. This man had among 
other things said to the king : ' You have three daughters, 
namely, Pride, Luxury, and Avarice ; and as long as they 
shall remain with you, you can never expect to be in favour 
with God.' .To which the king, after a short pause, replied : 
' I have already given away those daughters in marriage : 
Pride to the Templars, Luxury to the Black Monks, and 
Avarice to the White.' " 

In 1 1 89, to further the Crusade, Giraldus went 
over with Henry II. into France, where the war 
broke out between the king and his sons, and 
Henry himself died broken-hearted the same year. 



igo "iSarljj ©frronickrg of lEnglant). 

Richard I., succeeding, sent Giraldus back to Wales 
to prevent disturbances arising from the change. 
He was now less enthusiastic for the Crusade, and 
obtained from the papal legate dispensations both 
for himself and for the Bishop of St. David's to 
stay at home. He was now rising in favour, and 
within a few years was offered successively the 
bishoprics of Bangor and Llandaff, both of which 
he declined. No Welsh bishopric, except St. 
David's, could tempt him to abandon literary 
pursuits, to which he seems now to have been 
more devoted than ever. In 1 192, he was on the 
point of revisiting Paris when the war broke out 
between Richard Cceur de Lion and Philip 
Augustus, and compelled him to remain at home. 
He took up his abode at Lincoln, renowned in 
those days for its school of theology, and remained 
there till the death of his old rival, Peter de Leia, 
left the bishopric of St. David's once more vacant. 
The object of his old ambition was now offered him 
by the chapter without solicitation on his part. 
But some adverse influence again crossed his path. 
Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, refused 
to accept his nomination, and resolved that no 
Welshman should be appointed. A weary con- 
troversy arose, in which Giraldus three times 
visited Rome to procure from Innocent III. a 
recognition of the rights of the see of St. David's. 
But in the end his election was set aside, as well 
as that of a rival who had been uncanonically 
elected in his place ; and the bishopric was finally 



Jiorrtjcrtt f^igtorfang. 



conferred on a third person, not more favourable to 
the independence of the see than Peter de Leia 
had been. Giraldus was disgusted, but appealed 
no more. He lived to see the bishopric again 
vacant, and again offered to him in 1215 ; but he 
had now learned wisdom by experience and refused 
positively to accept it. He is supposed to have 
died in 1223. 

And now, taking leave of our Welsh friends 
Geoffrey and Giraldus, we must devote a brief 
space to another school of historians. No contrast 
could well be greater than that between the writers 
we have just been describing and those of the north 
of England. We change at once from imagination 
to realism, from amusing bombast, simple-minded 
credulity and picturesque descriptions to the most 
sober, the most accurate, and often the most prosaic 
of mediaeval chronicles. In drawing attention to 
their writings here, we do not purpose to treat of 
them at a length at all proportionate to their real 
importance. But it would be impossible to pass 
over in silence the works of some of the most 
weighty of our early historians ; and a very few 
words may be enough to make them known to the 
general reader. 

It was in the north of England that monasticism' 
from the first had taken the strongest hold. It is 
in the north that we first meet with evidences of 
native genius and a real native literature. The 
foundation of Whitby Abbey by St. Hilda un- 
sealed the lips of the poet Caedmon, and taught 



192 lEarlg ©fjromckrg of lEnglanfc. 

him to pour out the story of Creation in Anglo- 
Saxon verse. The two monasteries founded near 
Durham by Benedict Biscop, were the school of 
the Venerable Bede, and the teaching of Bede 
himself must have done much to educate a new 
race of thinkers and writers. At York, too, under 
Archbishop Albert, in the middle of the eighth 
century, was a great school of learning, from which 
emanated the illustrious scholar, Alcuin, who turned 
the court of Charlemagne into a university. No- 
where in those early times was education more 
advanced, nowhere was thought so active, as in the 
north of England. 

From the days of Bede a long succession of 
chroniclers endeavoured, at however great a dis- 
tance, to follow in his footsteps, and to continue 
the annals of Northumbria from the date at which 
he left off. Soon after the Conquest the inmates 
of his old monastery at Jarrow removed to Durham ; 
and Simeon of Durham, one of those who migrated 
from the older establishment, carried down the 
history to the year 1 1 29. The work, however, that 
bears his name, though printed as one, is really 
two separate treatises, and it is evident that the 
earlier fragment was the production of earlier 
writers in the north of England. Mr. Stubbs is 
inclined to think that Alcuin may have had some 
hand in it. The work of Simeon himself has 
always stood in very high repute, and various 
continuations were written to it in early times. 
One separate line of continuators, all belonging to 



ilortStttt l^tetortanst. 193 

the same monastery, brought it down even to the 
days of the Reformation.* But it must be owned 
that these give merely the dry bones of the history 
of their own cathedral and of the bishops who ruled 
there. Another and a more interesting continua- 
tion was written in the monastery of Hexham by 
John of Hexham, as he is called, the prior of that 
house, who brought the narrative down to 11 54. 
He, however, was preceded, as a historian, by Prior 
Richard of the same monastery, who wrote a very 
valuable history of the acts of King Stephen, 
ending with an account of the Battle of the 
Standard. Another account of that battle was 
written by Ailred, abbot of the Cistercian monas- 
tery of Rievaulx, in Yorkshire, who was led to un- 
dertake the task out of regard for the founder of his 
monastery, Sir Walter d'Espec. This is not by 
any means such an important work as the other, 
much space being taken up by speeches of the 
different leaders before the battle, and especially 
of Sir Walter d'Espec, who was one of those who 
fought there. 

A little later we have the Chronicle of Holyrood, 
mainly devoted to Scotch affairs, and after it the 
History of William of Newburgh, one of the best 
original authorities for the reign of Henry II. This 
writer, to whom we have already made reference as 
the severe censor of the fictions of Geoffrey of 
Monmouth, was a native of Bridlington, born in the 

* See Histories Dunelmenis Scriptores Tres, published by the 
Surtees Society. 

ENG. O 



194 SEarlj) ©frroiutlerg of lEnglanfc, 

year 1 1 36, and was known to his contemporaries as 
William Petit or Parvus ; but he became an Austin 
canon of the abbey of Newburgh, in Yorkshire, in 
which he received his education. His history, 
though commencing with the Conquest, may really 
be considered contemporary, as the events prior to 
the reign of Stephen are compressed into less than 
a dozen pages. It is written in a very clear and 
interesting style, after the model of Bede, and 
generally with great judgment and common sense. 
Roger of Hoveden (that is, of Howden, in York- 
shire) set himself to the task of continuing Bede's 
History down to his own day, with the aid of 
several former compilations. He divided his 
labours into two parts — a Pars Prior extending 
to the death of King Stephen ; and a Pars 
Posterior, from the accession of Henry II. to the 
year 1201. Of Pars Prior, almost all except the 
last seven years is borrowed from Simeon of 
Durham, and Henry of Huntingdon ; and through- 
out a considerable part of Pars Posterior he 
either followed or worked in common with Benedict 
of Peterborough, who has left us a chronicle of his 
own ; so that how far he is an original author is 
uncertain. But he is mentioned by Benedict 
himself as one of King Henry's clerks, whom he 
sent over from Poitou in 11 74, to persuade some 
turbulent chieftains in Galloway, to become subjects 
of the English crown. From this it is evident that 
he enjoyed the confidence of a very able king on 
political matters ; and the fact is quite in accord- 



Motti)txn f^tetotfang. 195 

ance with the character of his history, which 
though it professes to be merely annals, is alto- 
gether unlike the bald chronicles left by many 
other writers. It is, in fact, a very able political 
survey of the reigns of Henry II. and Richard I., 
including the commencement of King John's reign, 
full of information, not only about the affairs of 
England, but about those of France, and of 
Flanders, of Germany, Italy, and almost every 
other European country. 

The Chronicle of Melrose is a compilation from 
the northern writers who succeeded Bede, to the 
beginning of the thirteenth century, but is continued 
as an original narrative, relating to the affairs of 
England and Scotland, as far as the year 1270, 
when the only manuscript breaks off abruptly in 
relating the attempt of a Saracen to assassinate 
Prince Edward in the Holy Land. The informa- 
tion contained in this chronicle gives it a very high 
value to historians; but it is neither a philosophical 
history nor in itself a very entertaining record of the 
events it relates. 

Walter Hemingburgh, a canon of the priory of 
Gisborough in Yorkshire, wrote also a history com- 
mencing with the Conquest, which he carried down 
at first to the days of Edward I. He then added 
a continuation into the reign of Edward II. ; " but 
whether the latter part of this be lost," says his 
editor, Mr. Hamilton, " or was never written has 
not been ascertained. The History of Edward III. 
seems to have been composed as information of 



196 lEarlg ©SronWctg of 1Englatit>. 

passing events was procured ; and the abrupt, 
termination of the work with a rubric of a new 
section, De Bello inter Reges Anglics et Fr amice 
apud Cressy Commisso, must be regarded either as 
indicating that the health of the writer at this 
period was such as to forbid further literary exer- 
tion, or that he deceased while waiting for more 
perfect information of the famous battle he intended 
to record." 

As an original authority on the reigns of the 
three Edwards, Hemingburgh has always been 
esteemed of the highest value. He is a writer of 
clear judgment, and cultivated taste, whose accuracy 
of statement is only equalled by the elegance of his 
style. In the course of his narrative he quotes a 
number of documents of high importance, such as 
Edward I.'s confirmation of the Great Charter, and 
the document commonly known as the statute de 
tallagio 11011 concedendo. He also quotes at full 
length a large number of original letters, especially 
in the reign of Edward III., in which the text is 
little more than a collection of what we might call 
State papers, connected together by a slender 
thread of historical explanatory narrative. 

The Chronicle of Lanercost, which ends in the 
same year as Hemingburgh, appears to have received 
its name from a misapprehension as to the place 
where it was compiled. It had long been known 
as a very valuable record of Border history, but it 
remained in manuscript till the year 1839, when it 
was edited by Mr. Stevenson for the Bannatyne 



i&ortijent ^tetoriang. 197 

and Maitland Clubs. Some of the passages, in 
which the writer refers to the priory of Lanercost, in 
Cumberland, are such as might easily have deceived 
a cursory reader; but Mr. Stevenson has very 
clearly shown that they by no means bear out the 
theory that the work was composed in that priory, 
while there is evidence scattered up and down the 
whole chronicle tending to show that the writer 
was a Minorite friar, most probably belonging to 
the convent of Carlisle. He seems, however, to 
have been at Berwick in the year 13 12, when he 
saw and described the wonderful rope ladders by 
which Bruce and his comrades almost succeeded in 
scaling the walls of the castle, the attempt being 
only defeated by the barking of a dog. The friars, 
from their wandering habits, were great go-betweens 
in time of war, and our author, although entirely 
English in his sympathies, obtained a good deal of 
information from the brethren of his own order in 
Scotland. The immunities of the friars, however, 
were sometimes found troublesome, and in 1333, 
we find Edward III. commanding that all the 
Scotch friars in the convent at Berwick should 
leave the town, and that English friars should take 
their places. It is rather amusing to read that, 
when, in consequence of this order, two English 
friars carne to the convent, some of their Scotch 
brethren while preparing to depart entertained the 
newcomers with much interesting conversation at 
dinner time, while others, breaking into the library, 
packed up all the books, chalices, and vestments, 



1 98 3sar(g Chroniclers of lEnglanD. 

tied them up in silk cloths, and carried them off, 
saying that they were articles lent by Patrick, Earl 
of March, who at that time had just come over to 
the English side. On the whole, the Chronicle of 
Lanercost is one of the most interesting of these 
northern records. 




i£te*3JKSi 



^asg*5JE<aKa«aKflg^El^^g^ 




tte^mz&tzgjsz&z&szss&mz&r&sz&z 



CHAPTER V. 



RECORDS OF THE FRIARS. 



Actual results of the Crusades injurious to Christian faith and 
morals — St. Dominic and the Preaching Friars — The Albigenses 
■ — St. Francis — The Eastern leprosy — Devotion of the Francis- 
cans — Thomas of Eccleston's account of their settlement in 
England — Anecdotes— Aquinas and the Schoolmen — Trivet's 
Annales — Stubbs's Archbishops of York — Franciscan Schoolmen 
— Roger Bacon, Scotus, Occam. 

To many of those who are familiar with mediaeval 
chronicles the title prefixed to this chapter may- 
seem a strange one. The direct contributions of 
the friars to historical literature are certainly few 
in number, and so slender in amount as to seem 
quite unworthy of notice beside the copious and 
abundant supplies of the monastic chronicles. 
Indeed, when one considers the amazing intellectual 
activity of the men of whom we are now to speak, 
their unproductiveness in the field of history is all 
the more remarkable, and it might well seem that 
in a work such as the present, it was hardly neces- 
sary to make any special allusion to their labours 
at all. But this would be to take a very contracted 



lEarlg ©ijrontckrij of lEnglanD. 



view of a great subject. The historical literature of 
a country is not a thing to be studied entirely by 
itself; nor can the spirit of English chronicles be 
appreciated without reference to the labours of 
some who are not generally called by the name of 
chroniclers. More particularly in studying an age 
of great social revolution, when the fountains of 
the great deep were broken up, is it necessary to 
turn aside from the pages of the regular historian, 
and systematic compiler of annals, to learn what 
thoughts possessed the minds of the most pro- 
found among the thinkers, and the most energetic 
among the doers of the day. For this reason it is 
that we must again call attention to the introduc- 
tion of new religious orders, and bestow a few 
words, however brief, upon the writings of the 
friars and the schoolmen. 

The Crusades had left their mark upon the 
world —indeed a good many marks ; but no such 
mark as their authors had intended. The Holy 
Land had not been recovered from the Infidels; the 
Saracens had not been converted. It had been 
found practically impossible for Christians to treat 
the Moslem in the way the children of Israel were 
taught to treat the Canaanites — as men with whom 
no peace was to be made. The Christians of that 
day adopted too easily a very different principle 
and regarded their enemies for some time as men 
with whom no faith was to be kept. But even this 
was a rule impossible to be maintained. Relations 
necessarily grew up between the opposing com- 



lEffectg of tije ©ruga&eg. 201 

batants ; and ere long the commercial cities of the 
Mediterranean found the Infidel a very good cus- 
tomer. The Crusades had opened up new channels 
of commerce ; and with the material luxuries of 
the East came also its intellectual wares, its vices, 
and its horrible diseases. 

Instead of the Christians converting the Moslem 
it seemed rather that the faith of Christendom 
itself was being undermined by Pagan, philosophy 
and libertinism. While the Saracens still held the 
Holy Land, the Moors still kept possession of 
Spain. The science of the Arabians had gained 
great influence at the universities, and freethinkers 
were disposed to bow to the intellectual supremacy 
of Islam. Manichean tendencies asserted them- 
selves all over Europe — in the doctrines of the 
Albigenses — in the open profligacy and epicurean- 
ism of Frederick II. — in the secret practices im- 
puted to the Templars. The Church itself was 
grossly corrupt ; the law of priestly celibacy had 
made things even worse. The priesthood were 
thereby cut off from the social relations and every- 
day life of the community, while the superior 
sanctity attributed to their order only led to grosser 
demoralisation. "It is no longer true," said St. 
Bernard, " that the priests are as bad as the people ; 
for the priests are worse than the people." In such 
a state of matters, new agencies were absolutely 
needed to cope with the spiritual, moral, and physi- 
cal diseases of the times. 

For the spiritual evils, the Spaniard, St. Dominic, 



202 HEarlg ©ftromclcriS of Isnglant). 

believed the means of counteracting them was by 
the establishment of a trained society of preachers. 
He himself had the gift of eloquence in no common 
measure, and had already distinguished himself 
as a theologian at the universities of his native 
country, when he left Spain to accompany the 
bishop of Osma, his diocesan, whom Alfonso IX., 
of Castile, had sent on a diplomatic mission to the 
south of France. That mission accomplished, the 
bishop and he obtained leave of the Pope to take 
part in certain efforts which were then being made 
for the conversion of the Albigenses. His energy 
in this vocation soon became conspicuous and led 
to the institution of the order of Preaching Friars 
commonly called after him Dominicans. At first 
they were only new communities of the Canons 
Regular of St. Augustine; for the institution of 
new orders was not looked upon with favour ; but 
in the end their rule was confirmed by a bull of 
Honorius III., in 1216, which conferred on them the 
distinctive name of Fratres Prcedicantes. They 
were popularly known in England as the Black 
Friars. 

Unhappily, mere preaching did not suffice to 
convert the heretics, and St. Dominic obtained 
papal authority to hold courts which formed an evil 
precedent for the Inquisition of after days. Sus- 
pected heretics were called before these tribunals 
and questioned as to their belief. The object may 
have been to reason with and convince the un- 
learned ; the effect was only to confound them with 



©fje ^readjmg iFrtarg. 203 

the subtleties of the schools. But the obstinate 
were punished, even with the punishment of death. 
This naturally did not tend to peace. Sharp 
disputes arose, and a papal legate who had rebuked 
to his face Count Raymond of Toulouse, was 
murdered by one of the count's dependants, — not 
indeed in cold blood, like Becket, but in an angry 
altercation arising out of his former boldness. Still, 
a papal envoy had died a martyr's death, and a 
crusade was proclaimed by the Pope against the 
unhappy heretics. Dominic himself, who had at 
first been solicitous rather to persuade than to 
persecute, was its principal instigator. Simon de 
Montfort was the leader of the expedition ; and 
after a war of ruthless indiscriminate slaughter the 
unhappy Albigenses were in the end exterminated. 
But though preaching to avowed heretics had 
thus failed in its intended effect, the order of the 
Preaching Friars became popular elsewhere. Their 
oratory was attractive, and they had an abode in 
every considerable town. Unlike the monks, whose 
ordinary life was spent within the cloister, or the 
clergy whose ordinary duties were discharged in 
church, these men were continually abroad among 
the people, preaching to them the duty of adhering 
to the Church, and warning them against heresy 
and schism. It added weight, moreover, to their 
exhortations that in order to qualify themselves for 
their mission, they had, in accordance with St. 
Dominic's injunctions, to renounce all private 
property, and depend for their subsistence upon 



204 lEarlg ©ijronlclettf of lEnglatxti. 

charity. Their dwelling-house and church might 
be sumptuous buildings ; but the friars themselves 
were to share in the poverty, the toil, and the labour 
of the classes to whom they principally addressed 
themselves. 

But the popularity of the Dominicans, especially 
in England, was greatly exceeded by that of the 
Franciscan order. 

St. Dominic had addressed himself too exclu- 
sively to the spiritual evils of the time. St. Francis, 
a layman, set himself rather to the relief of its 
physical ailments. His thoughts, like those of 
other men, had been at one time directed towards 
the Saracens, but he found work far more urgent 
and pressing to be done among the neglected 
population of the towns. Born at Assisi, in central 
Italy, he had been brought up as factor for his 
father, a wealthy merchant, and he had learned 
through his commercial occupations the real wants 
and miseries of the age. " He had to strip Christi- 
anity, in the first instance," says Mr. Brewer, " of 
the regal robe in which popes and prelates had 
invested it ; to preach it as the gospel of the poor 
and the oppressed. It was not to be a trap for 
men's obedience ; it was not to demand a surrender 
of that independence which the commons of the 
towns had guarded so jealously, and purchased at 
such costly sacrifices. He caught the poorest in 
their poverty ; the subtle in their subtlety ; sending 
among them preachers as ill-clad and as ill-fed, 
but as deep thinkers in all respects as themselves. 



&t. jFrancfe. 205 

. . . His followers are to visit the towns two and 
two, in just so much clothing as the commonest 
mendicant could purchase. They are to sleep at 
nights under arches, or in the porches of desolate 
and deserted churches, among idiots, lepers, and 
outcasts ; to beg their bread from door to door ; to 
set an example of piety and submission." 

It is difficult to realise the condition of the towns 
in those days. They were behind the country in 
civilization. Monasteries afforded to the rural 
population the means of education and supplied 
their spiritual wants ; but the towns possessed no 
such advantages. Least of all did the inhabitants 
of the low and fetid suburbs, where the last 
refugees from feudal tyranny took up their abode, 
— least of all did these dregs of city life, packed 
together in narrow lanes close upon the town ditch, 
know anything of the humanities, or experience 
any of the Christian charity of the times. It was 
in these quarters that plague and pestilence com- 
mitted the most fearful ravages. In these quarters 
the Eastern leprosy took up its abode. 

This loathsome and horrible disease completely 
baffled the medical skill of the time. No method 
was known by which to mitigate the scourge or 
restore the afflicted man to health ; only, for the 
sake of the community at large he must be turned 
out of house and home and cut off from social 
intercourse. St. Francis was the first who did 
anything to relieve the lot of these miserable out- 
casts ; but what a struggle with nature it required 



206 lEarlg ©Droniclerg of lEnglanfc. 

in any one to attempt the task we may learn from 
his words alone. " When I was in the bondage of 
sin," he wrote, " it was bitter and loathsome to me 
to see and look upon persons infected with leprosy ; 
but that blessed Lord brought me among them, 
and I did mercy with them, and I departing from 
them, what before seemed bitter and loathsome 
was turned and changed to me into great sweet- 
ness and comfort both of body and soul." 

In the Mirror of his Life {Speculum Vitce), com- 
posed by some of his companions, we see how 
deliberately he set himself to overcome this loath- 
ing. On one occasion he fears he has given way 
to it in such a manner as to hurt the feelings^ of 
one of the unhappy sufferers. " Therefore," we are 
told, " wishing to make satisfaction to God and the 
leper, he confessed his guilt to Peter Cataneus, the 
minister general, and begged him to confirm the 
penance that he intended to impose upon himself. 
Then, said St. Francis, this is my penance ; to eat 
out of the same dish with this Christian brother. 
When all were seated at table a single dish was 
placed between St. Francis and the leper. He 
was a leper all over, disgusting for his open ulcers, 
especially as his fingers were covered with sores 
and blood, insomuch that as he dipped his fingers 
in the dish and carried the morsels to his mouth, 
the gore and blood dropped into the dish. As the 
friars looked on they were greatly grieved and 
pained at the sight. But for the reverence they 
bore him, not one dared utter a word. He that 



j&t. jFraitcfe. 207 

saw these things bore record of them and wrote 
them." 

A still finer triumph of his Christian fortitude 
and humility is recorded in the same work as 
follows : — 

" He appointed that the friars of his order, dispersed in 
various parts of the world, should, for the love of Christ, 
diligently attend the lepers wherever they could be found. 
They followed this injunction with the greatest promptitude. 
Now, there was in a certain place a leper so impatient, fro- 
ward, and impious, that every one thought he was possessed 
by an evil spirit. He abused all that served him with terrible 
oaths and imprecations, often proceeding to blows. What 
was still more fearful, he uttered the direst blasphemy against 
Christ and His holy Mother, and the holy angels. The 
friars endured this ill-usage patiently, but they could not 
tolerate his blasphemies ; they felt they ought not, and there- 
fore they resolved to abandon the leper to his fate, having 
first taken counsel with St. Francis. Brother Francis visited 
the leper, and upon entering the room said to him, in the 
usual salutation : 'The Lord give thee peace, brother.' 
'What peace,' exclaimed the leper, 'can I have, who am 
entirely diseased ? ' ' Pains that torment the body,' replied 
St. Francis, 'turn to the salvation of the soul if they are 
borne patiently.' ' And how can I endure patiently,' rejoins 
the leper, ' since my pains are without intermission night and 
day ? Besides, my sufferings are increased by the vexation 
I endure from the friars you have appointed to wait upon 
me. There is not one of them who serves me as he ought.' 
St. Francis perceived that the man was troubled by a malig- 
nant spirit, and went away and prayed to God for him. 
Then returning he said, ' Since others do not satisfy you, let 
me try.' ' You may, if you like ; but what can you do more 
than others ? ' 'I am ready to do whatever you please,' 
replied St Francis. 'Then wash me,' replied the leper, 



208 ISaicla ©Ijronfrkrg of lEnglant). 

' because I cannot endure myself. The stink of my wounds 
is intolerable.' Then St. Francis ordered water to be 
warmed with sweet herbs, and, stripping the leper, began to 
wash him with his own hands, whilst a friar standing by 
poured water upon him." 

Such were the duties that St. Francis undertook 
himself and enjoined upon his followers. How 
hard it seemed to comply with the severity of such 
a rule we can well imagine. When he first appeared 
before the Pope with a copy of the regulations 
which he proposed to lay down, they seemed so 
utterly repulsive and impracticable as only to excite 
contempt. The reception he met with on this 
occasion is recorded as follows by Roger of Wend- 
over, a monk of St. Alban's, who was contemporary 
with St. Francis himself : — 

" The Pope gazed fixedly on the ill-favoured mien of the 
aforesaid brother, his mournful countenance, lengthened 
beard, his untrimmed hair, and his dirty, overhanging brow ; 
and when he heard his petition read, which it was so difficult 
and impracticable to carry out, despised him and said, ' Go, 
brother, go to the pigs, to whom you are more fit to be com- 
pared than to men, and roll with them, and to them preach 
the rules you have so ably set forth.' Francis, on hearing 
this, bowed his head and went away ; and having found 
some pigs he rolled with them in the mud till he had covered 
his body and clothes with dirt from head to foot ; he then, 
returning to the consistory, showed himself to the Pope and 
said, ; My lord, I have done as you ordered me ; grant me 
now, I beseech you, my petition.' The Pope was astonished 
when he saw what he had done, and felt sorry for having 
treated him with contempt, at the same time giving orders 
that he should wash himself and come back to him again. 



*&& dftanctgcan jFtiarg. 209 

He therefore cleansed himself from his dirt, and returned 
directly to the Pope. The Pope, being much moved, then 
granted his petition, and, after confirming his office of preach- 
ing as well as the order he applied for, by a privilege from 
the Church of Rome, he dismissed him with a blessing." 

Only by such indomitable perseverance could 
St. Francis have attained his end. Willing to 
undergo everything in a great cause himself, he 
infused a like spirit into his followers. Attendance 
upon lepers was required of all who joined his order. 
The self-sacrifice involved was the more striking 
because the new missionaries were not selected 
from the lower ranks of society, but from the well- 
educated and refined. A sound body and a good 
understanding, with some amount of learning, were 
insisted on as indispensable requisites for admis- 
sion ; a bastard, a bondman, and a man in debt 
were equally ineligible. Yet, whatever property a 
man had he must absolutely renounce in order to 
be a disciple of St. Francis. Henceforth he was 
to possess nothing in the world but the coarse robe 
and mantle about him, and, in some cases, shoes. 
For his support, he was to beg his bread from door 
to door. In this rigid poverty not even books were 
allowed — not even a psalter or a breviary to aid 
his devotions. And so strictly was the rule ob- 
served that Roger Bacon, in the succeeding age, 
told the Pope he could not put the results of his 
researches in writing without a special dispensation 
from his Holiness to allow him ink and parchment. 
Debarred thus from literature and literary pur- 
ENG. P 



210 lEarlg Chroniclers of iEnglanti. 

suits, the Franciscan set himself more devotedly to 
the work of tending the sick. This practical duty, 
however, gave a new turn to thought, and led him 
to study the remedial powers of nature. The very 
casting aside of books, and, with books, of the 
subtleties of philosophy and logic as studied at the 
universities, threw him on the teaching of nature 
itself and caused him to examine experimentally 
the healing qualities of the different kinds of herbs. 
Systematic researches paved the way for true 
physical science ; physical studies paved the way 
for metaphysical, and the very men who had begun 
by renouncing the learning of the age became 
themselves the greatest promoters of learning. 
From their ranks arose the great schoolmen and 
the philosophers of the succeeding age. 

In thus briefly tracing the origin and history of 
the Franciscans, we have merely followed and con- 
densed what has been far more ably written of 
them by the Rev. J. S. Brewer, in the preface to his 
valuable collection of documents relating to the 
order, entitled Monumenta Franciscana. We shall 
now be indebted to the body of the same work 
for a few pictures of these friars, and how they 
lived at the time of their first settlement in this 
country. First among the contents of the book is 
a treatise by Thomas of Eccleston, " on the coming 
of the Minorites into England," a very simple, 
unadorned narrative of the history of that settle- 
ment. The Franciscan order, it should be men- 
tioned, were at first called Friars Minors, or 



®5c J^ancigcan dFtiarg. 



Minorites, a name that was intended to impress 
upon them the duties of humility, and to show the 
essential character of their vocation. They were 
to be the " Lesser Brethren " of all whom it was in 
their power to benefit. In after times, however, 
they were more commonly called after their 
founder, Franciscans, and in England, from the 
colour of their habit they were commonly known 
as the Grey Friars, just as the Dominicans were 
known as the Black. 

Thomas of Eccleston would seem to have been 
one of the second generation of English Grey Friars, 
who had known and had much intercourse with 
the original members of the order. He tells us 
that he had been induced by the marvellous things 
related of other orders to collect the accounts which 
his fosterfathers and brethren among the Francis- 
cans had related to him of his own during a period 
of five and twenty years. His work is divided into 
fourteen chapters, of which the first is the account 
of the first arrival of Friars Minors in England in 
1224, the same year that the rule of their founder 
St. Francis was confirmed by Pope Honorius III. 
In that year four clerks and five lay brethren of the 
order landed at Dover on Tuesday, 10th Septem- 
ber. Their names and some little personal descrip- 
tion of each are given in the narrative. Their 
superior was Brother Agnellus of Pisa, whom St. 
Francis himself had appointed to be provincial 
minister in England. The other three clerks were 
Englishmen born, the third, by name William de 



2i2 lEarlg ©Sromclerg of lEnglanD. 

Esseby, being still a novice and young in years. 
Of him it is related, as an example of the obedient 
spirit so strongly inculcated among the brethren, 
that being asked by the provincial minister of 
France if he wished to go into England, he replied 
that he did not know ; and when the minister was 
surprised at this answer, he explained to him that 
the reason he did not know was because his will 
was not his own ; whatever the English provincial 
determined about it, he himself would wish. He 
was a man of remarkable gentleness and suavity, 
who, says the author, " led into the way of salvation 
many fitting persons of various ranks, ages, and 
conditions ; and he proved to the eyes of many 
that the blessed Jesus knew how to do wonders 
and by locusts to conquer giants." * 

The brethren were taken across the Channel for 
charity by the monks of Fecamp, in Normandy. 
On reaching Canterbury they were entertained two 
days by the monks at the priory of Holy Trinity ; 
and then four went on to London, while the five 
others turned to the priests' hospital and remained 
there till they had provided a place for themselves. 

" A small chamber in a school-house was granted to them, 
where they sat, as it were, shut up from day to day. But 
when the scholars returned home in the evening they entered 
the house in which they sat, and there made themselves a 
fire and sat about it ; and sometimes when they were going 
to have a little supper, they set upon the fire a little pot with 

* An allusion to Numbers xiii. 33. The locuste of the Vulgate are 
"grasshoppers" in our version. 



, ®!)e dPtanctecan Jttarg. 213 

the dregs of beer, and put a dish upon the pot and drank all 
round ; and they each said some word of edification. And 
by the testimony of one who was a partaker of this simple 
fare, and made himself the companion and sharer of their 
poverty, the beer was at times so thick that when the dishes 
were to be heated they poured in water, and so drank with 
joy. The like also happened frequently at Salisbury, where 
the brethren at supper time drank mere dregs about the 
kitchen fire with so much joy and hilarity that any one 
esteemed himself happy who succeeded in snatching them 
from another in a friendly fashion." 

The strictness with which they followed the rule 
of poverty in those days was such that they would 
scarcely contract a debt even for their extreme 
necessities. When Brother Agnellus, the provincial 
minister of the order, visiting the warden of their 
house at London, desired to hear from the friars 
there how much they had spent within one term, 
he was so shocked even at a very moderate expen- 
diture, that he threw away their rolls and tallies, 
and striking himself in the face, declared that from 
thenceforth he would never audit any account what- 
ever. It is also recorded that at one of their houses, 
two strange brethren having arrived weary and 
footsore, the house hardly knew how to entertain 
them, as they had not a drop of beer. On a con- 
sultation among the seniors, the warden determined 
to borrow a pot of beer, but it was agreed that the 
brethren of the convent should not drink them- 
selves, but only pretend to drink along with the 
strangers " propter caritatem." " In the convent at 
London," adds the writer, " I have seen the friars 



2 t.j. lEarlg ©Jjronlclerg of lEnglattTj. 



drink such sour beer that some would prefer water, 
and eat bread which the people call a twist (tortd), 
and even when bread failed they would persistently 
eat other things in the presence of the minister and 
guests." 

The four friars who, leaving their brethren at, 
Canterbury, went on to London and founded the 
first settlement in the metropolis, were entertained 
for a fortnight by the already established com- 
munity of Black Friars. They then took a house 
in Cornhill and made cells in it, filling up the 
interstices with grass. They remained till the 
following summer without a chapel, not having yet 
obtained a faculty to erect altars and celebrate the 
mass. Before many weeks were over, two of the 
four started for Oxford, where again the Black 
Friars gave them a kindly reception for eight days, 
till they hired a house in the suburbs, in the parish 
of St. Ebb's. After the community there had 
received some accessions they sent forth an off- 
shoot to Northampton, and in the same way new 
communities were founded at Lincoln, Cambridge, 
and other towns. Within thirty-two years from 
their first arrival in England the number of Grey 
Friars throughout the country had reached 1242, 
and the number of their houses was forty-nine. 

It must not be supposed, however, that the first 
devotees who gave themselves up to this life of 
poverty and hardship were spared, even in that age, 
more than such men would be in our day, a severe 
conflict with social prejudice. Brother Solomon, 



fflbe iFraimgcan .dfriarg. 215 

one of the earliest novices, who was afterwards 
warden of the London house, was appointed to 
collect alms for the brethren, and went to the house 
of his own sister with that object. She brought 
him bread, but turned away her face exclaiming, 
" Cursed be the hour in which I ever saw thee ! " 
It was the first of Brother Solomon's trials. He 
used to endure such cold in procuring faggots, or 
meal and salt, or figs for a sick brother, that he 
thought he should have died ; and the brethren 
not having other means to warm him, gathered 
round and pressed him to their bosoms " as is the 
manner of pigs," says our author. He was ordained 
as an acolyte by Archbishop Stephen Langton, 
dined at the archbishop's table, and returned home 
along with one of his seniors barefooted through 
deep snow. The result was that he was lamed in 
one foot, and could not stir for two years. Friar 
Jordan, the superior of the Dominicans, visited 
him in his infirmity, and said to him, " Brother, be 
not ashamed if the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 
draw thee to him by the foot." His case grew so 
bad that the surgeons advised amputation, an 
operation which was then performed with an axe ; 
but when the instrument was brought and the foot 
uncovered matter issued from the sore, which gave 
some hope of amendment. He was sent abroad to 
visit the shrine of some foreign saint, and in time 
recovered so completely as to officiate at the altar 
and walk without a stick. But afterwards he broke 
his spine, became humpbacked, and was afflicted 



2i6 lEarlg ©Jjromclerg of lEnglantu 

with dropsy till his death. On the day before he 
died he suffered an agony to which all his preceding 
pains seemed as nothing ; but calling on three of 
his more special friends to pray for him he had a 
vision of Jesus Christ and St. Peter, in which our 
Lord assured him of the forgiveness of his sins, 
and his anguish at once departed. 

Of visions and the like it is only right to expect 
somewhat in these narratives, and our author goes 
on to recount several others, of which the first will 
be thought rather too much in keeping with the 
squalor and filth with which the life of the friars 
forced them to make acquaintance : — 

" It is worthy of memory that when the brethren were in 
their place at Cornhill, the Devil came visibly, and said to 
Brother Gilbert de Vyz, when he was sitting alone, ' You think 
you have escaped me? There, take that,' and threw upon 
him a handful of lice, and vanished." 

Our author then goes on to speak of their holi- 
ness of life, their cheerfulness, and their assiduity, 
in daily journeying barefooted to schools of theo- 
logy. m spite of cold and mud, till they became 
competent preachers. He then relates how, in the 
first provincial chapter, at London, the whole of 
England was divided into wardenries, and, in con- 
nection with this part of their history, gives rather 
an amusing story, He first tells how, at Oxford, 
in the wardenship of Friar Peter, the brethren used 
no pillows. And he adds : — 

" Neither did the friars wear shoes unless they were sick 
or ill, and then by special permission. It happened, more- 



®&s JFranrigcan dFrlarg. 217 

over, that Friar Walter de Madeley, of happy memory, 
found two shoes, and when he went to matins put them on. 
He stood at matins accordingly, as it appeared to himself, in 
better condition than usual. But afterwards, when he went 
to bed, and was resting, it appeared to him that he had to go 
through a dangerous pass between Oxford and Gloucester, 
Boysalym (?), where there are usually robbers, and when he 
was going down into a deep valley they ran up to him on 
each side of the way, shouting, ' Kill him ! kill him !' Over- 
powered with dread, he said he was a Friar Minor ; but they 
said, ' You lie, for you do not walk barefooted.' He, be- 
lieving himself to be, as usual, unshod, said, ' Yes, I do walk 
barefooted/ and when he boldly put forth his foot, he found 
himself before them shod with those shoes ; and in his ex- 
cessive confusion he immediately awoke from sleep, and 
pitched the shoes into the middle of the yard." 

The author then shows how some difficulties 
arose about the observance of their rule in the 
matter of building, from the increased popularity 
of the order causing a demand for increased ac- 
commodation ; after which he speaks of the erec- 
tion of schools by Brother Agnellus at Oxford, 
in which he persuaded the celebrated Bishop 
Grosseteste, of Lincoln, to deliver the first lectures. 
The author himself was a student in these schools. 
There were also readers at Cambridge belonging 
to the order, of whom he has a word to say. 
Several of the friars, who did not preach, were, 
nevertheless, authorized to hear confessions, and 
Brother Solomon, of London, was the general con- 
fessor, both of the citizens and of the court. Two 
chapters of the book are devoted to the history of 
the successive general and provincial ministers of 



2i8 lEatlg ©ijronuto of SEnglant). 



the order. With all their holiness we find that 
the brethren were not without dissensions among 
themselves, and that Brother Elias was deposed 
from the office of minister-general after a sharp 
and bitter discussion before the Pope. It seems 
that he had never professed the rule of the order, 
laid down in the Pope's bull, about not receiving 
money, yet his adherents had succeeded in turning 
out his predecessor, and getting him elected. In 
the chapter on the provincial ministers we have 
some pleasant anecdotes like the following of Friar 
Albertus of Pisa : — 

" In the aforesaid collation Friar Albertus told a parable 
against the presumption of young men, saying that there 
was a certain bull who diverted himself in the meadows and 
fields just as he would, and when, one day, about prime or 
terce, he turned aside to the ploughing, and saw that the old 
oxen paced leisurely along the furrow, and had ploughed 
very little, he blamed them, and said he would have done as 
much at a start. And they begged him to help them. And 
when he was placed in the yoke, he ran with too great force 
to the middle of the furrow, and, being weary and out of 
breath, he looked round, and said, ' What ! is it not all done?' 
And the old oxen answered, ' Not yet,' and laughed at him. 
Then the bull said he could go no further. They, on the 
other hand, told him that they went more slowly for that very 
reason, because they had to work continually, and not only 
for a time." 

Friar Albertus is described as a strict enough 
disciplinarian, who ordered silence to be invariably 
observed at table, except when they had Domini- 
cans or friars of other provinces for their guests. 



Wife ifranrigcatt jFriar^. 219 

He also desired that the friars would wear old 
coats over new ones, both for the sake of humility 
and for economy in wear. At the same time, he 
did not encourage needless austerities calculated 
to injure the health r — ■ 

" He compelled Friar Eustace de Merc to eat fish contrary 
to his custom, saying that the order lost many good persons 
by their indiscretion. He said also that when he was staying 
with St. Francis in a certain hospital, the saint compelled 
him to double the daily portion of food that he had been 
used to eat. He was also so liberal that he gravely rebuked 
a certain warden, and likewise a Dominican, because they 
had not provided more abundantly for the convent after 
labour at a certain solemnity." 

Thus St. Francis himself, it will be seen, though 
he laid down a rule of severe self-denial, did not 
imitate the spirit of the later monastic orders in 
submitting the body to unnecessary constraint. 
Except on ordinary vigils and fasts, he allowed his 
followers to eat flesh or other food as they pleased, 
saying, that the body was made for the soul, and 
ought to be allowed no cause to complain that its 
wants were unattended to. In like manner it is 
recorded by Eccleston of Bishop Grosseteste, who 
was a special friend of the Franciscans, that " he 
enjoined on a certain melancholy friar that he 
should drink a cupful of the best wine for penance, 
and when he had drunk it up, though most un- 
willingly, he said to him, ' Dearest brother, if you 
had frequently such penance, you would certainly 
have a better-ordered conscience.' " 



lEarlg @&rontckt# of lEnglanti.. 



With this we may take leave of Thomas of 
Eccleston's very interesting little treatise, one of 
the very few contributions to historical literature 
that came from the friars. From what has been 
already said, it will not be thought wonderful that 
their v/ritings were rare ; but it is all the more 
valuable that we have in this case the record of a 
social movement of first-rate importance, which 
could not have been adequately described, except 
by one of those who took part in it. 

There were other orders of friars besides the 
Black and the Grey, but these were the most im- 
portant. Next to them were the Carmelites, or 
White Friars, and the Augustinians, or Austin 
Friars, who, with the former two, made up what 
were continually spoken of as the Four Orders. 
Thus it is said of the friar in Chaucer — 

" In alle the Ordres Foure is noon that can 
So moche of daliaunce and fair language." 

The Carmelites, driven from their original abode 
at Mount Carmel, in Palestine, settled in the dif- 
ferent countries of Europe, and came to England 
in 1240. The Austin Friars arrived in England 
about ten years later. 

The influence of all these new orders on the 
thought of the time was marked and extraordinaiy. 
Indeed, it would scarcely be an exaggeration to 
say that during the latter half of the thirteenth 
century the friars were the only thinkers. In theo- 
logy, physics, and metaphysics, they reigned su- 



Bommtcan JSriJooImen. 221 

preme ; and though for centuries their works have 
been little read, the names of some of their great 
thinkers are familiar to us still. 

The Dominican order, instituted for the express 
purpose of cultivating the art of preaching with a 
view to the conversion of heretics, naturally was 
the first to produce great theologians and scholars. 
It was incumbent on them, in the pursuit of the 
very object for which they were instituted, to popu- 
larize their philosophy as much as possible. Theo- 
logy was in that day a thing confined to the 
universities, where it had become a trite, conven- 
tional study. The whole science had been so sys- 
tematized in the preceding century by the Master 
of the Sentences, as he was called, Peter Lombard, 
the disciple of Abelard, that the teachers believed 
they had nothing to do but to read from what was, 
indeed, a complete body of divinity. But extracts 
from the Book of the Sentences, exhibiting the 
opinions of the Fathers upon obscure and knotty 
points of theology, were not likely to make a satis- 
factory impression on the minds of those to whom 
St. Dominic and his followers addressed themselves. 
It was essential that they should grapple with the 
heresies of the time, and meet them in the language 
of the time. The Dominicans accordingly ad- 
dressed themselves to the study and teaching of 
divinity with a thoroughness which had not been 
seen before. Following the methods of Aristotle, 
whose study was now in the ascendant in spite of 
papal efforts to brand it as pagan and provocative 



lEarlg ©Jromckrs of lEnglant). 



of heresy, they soon arrived at a complete and 
exhaustive philosophy of things both divine and 
human. Albertus Magnus, the German philoso- 
pher, drew up what was in effect an encyclopaedia 
of all the sciences ; but the man whose name 
chiefly resounded throughout Christendom — " the 
Angelical Doctor," as he was called in the schools — 
the brightest ornament of his own age, and the 
leader of a great school of thought for many a 
generation after him, was the Italian, Thomas 
Aquinas, with his Summa Theologies, or complete 
body and essence of divinity. He it was who was 
deemed to have made the citadel of orthodoxy 
logically impregnable, discussing every question 
by turns, from the elementary one of the existence 
of God Himself, and stating with a force and 
clearness equal to that of the rationalists them- 
selves every possible objection that could be taken 
to the truth as it was maintained by the Church 
Catholic. 

Thomas Aquinas died in 1274; and that same 
year the crown of England was placed on the head 
of Edward I. by a Dominican friar, named Robert 
Kilwardby, who had been promoted the year before 
to the archbishopric of Canterbury. This fact is 
in itself remarkably suggestive of the very high 
estimation in which the order was held, and the 
influence it had gained in less than sixty years 
after its first institution. But in those sixty years 
the intellectual achievements of the order had 
reached their climax ; and its greatness now began 



Wxibet 223 

to wane. Kilwardby himself was a very volum- 
inous writer, but his fame did not even approach 
that of " the Angelical Doctor," and not one of his 
numerous treatises has yet found its way into 
print. Indeed, there is scarcely a single English 
Dominican whose literary productions can be ex- 
pected to have much attraction for the modern 
reader. The systematic studies of the order were 
not of such a character as to awaken much 
sympathy in after ages. Yet there are two English 
Dominicans who deserve a passing notice here as 
labourers in the field of history. 

The first is Nicholas Trivet, the author of a 
valuable set of annals, extending from the reign 
of Stephen to the death of Edward I. He was 
the son of Thomas Trivet, one of the justices in 
eyre in the reign of Henry III., and had joined 
the brotherhood of the Dominicans even in early 
youth. Afterwards he studied at Oxford, and 
also at Paris. He alludes to his studies at the 
latter university in his preface to the annals above 
mentioned ; and it appears that when there, he 
devoted much attention to the history of the 
French and the Normans, making careful extracts 
of anything he met with relating to that of his 
own country. The result of these researches, as 
well as of further study, was embodied in his 
Annates Sex Regum Anglice; and as evidence 
of a systematic intellectual training, too seldom 
applied to the study of historical events, it is of 
peculiar interest. In clearness of narrative, and 



224 



lEarlg ©ijromclatf of lEnglantJ. 



distinctness of statement it exhibits a marked 
advance upon the ordinary chronicles of the time. 
The language, too, is polished and elegant, as is 
commonly the case when a writer makes accuracy 
and precision his chief aim. The record of each 
year is headed by a title, showing first the year of 
our Lord, and then in parallel columns that of the 
reigning Pope, and of the emperor, and of the 
French and English kings respectively, as follows : — 



D. N. J. C. 


P. ROMANORUM. R. 


FRANCORUM. 


ANGLORUM. 


MCXXXVI. 


Innocentii II. Lotharii IV. 
6. 10. 


Lodovici VI. 

27. 


Stephani 
1. 



This work constituted one of the original author- 
ities for the reign of Edward I., being for that 
period a contemporary history ; and as such we 
may allude to it hereafter. 

Trivet also wrote a general chronicle of the 
world from Adam to the Incarnation, and another 
in French, from the Creation to the thirteenth year 
of Edward II., which he dedicated to the Princess 
Mary, daughter of Edward I. But these works 
still remain in manuscript, and have little interest, 
even for the historian. 

The other Dominican writer to whom we have 
alluded, is Dr. Thomas Stubbs, the author of a 
histcry of the archbishops of York, written to 
vindicate the rights of that see against the primacy 
of Canterbury. It begins with the first archbishop, 
Paulinus, and is carried down to the fourty-fourth, 



^Franciscan j&djoolmen. 



John Thuresby, who died in 1373. It appears 
that Stubbs also wrote an account of the illustrious 
men of his own order, and some treatises on church 
law and morals which have never been printed. 
He is by no means so interesting a writer as Trivet, 
nor indeed so valuable. 

The intellectual history of the Franciscan order 
differs greatly from that of the Dominicans as the 
work to which they applied themselves was dif- 
ferent. We have seen already that St. Francis did 
not encourage literature, or even allow the posses- 
sion of books by his followers, who accordingly 
found occupation for their minds in the study of 
nature. The result was a race of physical philo- 
sophers, unrivalled for the extent of their re- 
searches, and for their penetrating judgment of 
things. They were not, however, mere material 
philosophers, but from the first bestowed much 
pains upon theology; and from the contemplation 
of God and nature they gradually extended their 
investigations over the whole field of human 
thought. They also attracted to themselves, in 
some instances, men who had already distinguished 
themselves in such studies. This was the case, 
with our countryman, Alexander of Hales, sur- 
named "the Irrefragable Doctor" (every one of 
the great Schoolmen had his peculiar epithet), who 
gave lectures at Paris, and became the teacher of 
another great Franciscan schoolman, the Italian 
Bonaventura, second in fame as a philosopher and 
theologian only to his fellow-countryman Aquinas. 

ENG. Q 



226 lEarlg ©Jjromclergi of lEnglanti. 

Bonaventura was called by his disciples "the 
Seraphic Doctor." His life was pure and beautiful, 
his insight clear, and undimmed by passion. Of 
some of his works it was said by Gerson, two 
centuries later, that he had been reading them for 
thirty years, and yet had scarcely attained to a 
first taste of their sweets, which always presented 
to him something fresh and delightful whenever he 
recurred to them. Mr. Maurice * has analysed a 
treatise of his, concerning "the reduction of arts 
under theology," which contains a number of 
very beautiful thoughts, touching the different 
kinds of light, external and internal, which come 
down, according to St. James's saying, from the 
Father of lights in Heaven. It is light, according 
to Bonaventura's view, which is the source of all 
good gifts. 

The name of " the Illuminated Doctor," however, 
was reserved for another great foreign scholar of 
this order, Raymond Lully, a native of Majorca, 
whose personal history, varied and full of adven- 
ture, is perhaps, of all biographies of the period, the 
most characteristic of the times. A soldier, a 
poet, and a libertine at the beginning of his career, 
at the age of thirty he was conscience-smitten. 
Influenced by visions, he renounced his lawless 
life, gave all his goods to the poor, and became a 
follower of St. Francis. His mind at the same 
time appears to have been occupied with the 
thought of a new moral philosophy, which was to 

* Medieval Philosophy, 215-222 (Ed. 1870). 



dFrancigcan jcrijoolmat. 227 

rescue sinners like himself, turn the heretic to 
orthodoxy, and convert the heathen. With this 
view he learned Arabic from a Saracen slave whom 
he had bought for the very purpose ; and having 
filled his mind with Arabian philosophy, produced 
a much-admired treatise, called by himself Ars 
Ltrfliana, and by his followers The Great Art, 
which was intended to simplify the acquisition of 
truth by a methodical classification of ideas. Not 
content, however, with announcing the theory, he 
eagerly sought leave to bring it to a practical trial. 
He visited Rome, Paris, and Genoa, trying in vain 
to impress upon the Pope and others, the import- 
ance of establishing institutions for teaching Arabic, 
and sending missionaries to the Mahometans. 
Then, unable to influence others, he himself sailed 
three times into Africa, exposing himself to the 
greatest hardships and dangers in his zeal to 
convert the Moslems. And after his third attempt 
he died on the passage home from the sufferings 
that he had endured. 

The zeal of English Franciscans was more 
tempered by discretion ; yet an element akin to 
romance is traceable in some of the anecdotes of 
their early history also. Thus the circumstances 
attending the entrance of two illustrious English- 
men into the order are related by Eccleston as 
follows : — 

" Master Adam of Oxford, who was famous throughout 
the world, had made a vow that he would grant any request 
that should be preferred to him in the name of the Blessed 



228 lEarlg ©fitcmWer-s of IHnglanD. 

Mary ; and he told this to a certain recluse who was a friend 
of his. She revealed the secret to her friends ; that is, to a 
monk of Reading, tc another of the Cistercian order, and to 
a friar preacher, telling them that they could gain such a man 
in such a way ; not wishing that Adam should become a 
Friar Minor. But the Blessed Virgin did not permit any one 
in his presence to make the needful request, but deferred it 
to another time. One night he had a dream that he had to 
cross a bridge, where some men were throwing their nets 
into the stream, endeavouring to catch him ; that he escaped 
them with difficulty, and reached a peaceful spot. Now 
when, by the divine will, he had escaped all others, he went 
casually to visit the friars, and during the conversation, 
William de Colville, the elder, a man of great sanctity, said 
among other things to Adam, ' My dear master, enter our 
order for the love of the Mother of God, and help our sim- 
plicity.-' And Adam immediately consented to do so, as if he 
had heard the words from the lips of the Mother of God. 
He was at that time the attendant on Master Adam de 
Marisco, wore his livery, and wisely induced him, by the 
grace of God, not long after to enter the order. Now it 
seemed to Adam de Marisco that on a certain night he and 
his companion were going to visit a certain castle, and out- 
side the gates there was a crucifix painted, and whoever 
wished to enter must first kiss the cross. Friar Adam of 
Oxford entered first, having kissed the cross, and imme- 
diately afterwards the other Friar Adam followed, doing the 
same. But the former, on finding the staircase, ascended 
with so much rapidity, that he was soon out of the sight of 
his companion, who followed him and cried aloud, ' More 
slowly ! More slowly ! ' But the other was seen no more. 
The meaning of this vision was soon after manifested to all 
the brethren in England ; for Friar Adam, after his admission 
visited Pope Gregory [IX], and obtaining the pope's assent to 
preach to the Saracens, died before his companion at Barlete. 
But Adam de Marisco entered at Worcester, through zeal of 
greater poverty." 



riFraimgcan j^djoolmot. 229 

The popularity of the Franciscans in England 
was greater than in any other -country, and among 
the distinguished men of the order the great ma- 
jority were Englishmen. Besides the two English 
schoolmen already named, Adam de Marisco and 
Alexander of Hales, it is enough to mention Roger 
Bacon, Duns Scotus, and Occam. No greater 
names than these shine in the intellectual firma- 
ment of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries ; and 
though with regard to Scotus, Scotland and Ireland 
contest with England the honour of having given 
him birth, there is no doubt that England may 
claim him as her own in a more essential point by 
virtue of his Oxford education. Of Roger Bacon, 
the greatest of mediaeval experimentalists, it is 
unnecessary to say much. His was a mind that 
could break through the bondage of mere authority 
and raise up for itself a complete fabric of science 
in almost every department of human knowledge. 
But with science we are not here concerned. Duns 
Scotus was " the Subtle Doctor " of the schools, who 
dared to dispute the doctrines of Aquinas and drew to 
Oxford, it was said, thirty thousand students to hear 
his lectures. From Oxford he was called to Paris, 
where his fame still increased, and he was afterwards 
sent to found a new university at Cologne, where 
the citizens went forth to meet him at his approach 
and carried him into their city in a triumphal car. 
At Paris he maintained in a public disputation the 
doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the 
Virgin, and brought over the whole university to 



230 Icnrlg ©Dronklers of lEnglanti. 

his view, which he defended by elaborate arguments 
against two hundred objections. But his greatness 
as a thinker is chiefly shown in the fact that for 
centuries after him scholastic minds were divided 
into the two rival sects of the Scotists and the 
Thomists according as they favoured his philosophy 
or that of Thomas Aquinas. 

William Occam is said to have been the pupil of 
Scotus, but he differed from his master in his doc- 
trine of " universals " — that is to say, of general 
terms, such as man, horse, or the like, used to indi- 
cate genus or species. Scotus was what was called 
a realist, — he considered abstractions to be realities, 
holding that the idea of a horse, or of any other 
species of object, was a real thing which existed 
before any individual horse or object of the kind 
was ever formed ; while Occam revived the old 
philosophy of the nominalists, who considered that 
generic names like this were names and nothing 
more. More important, however, and certainly 
more interesting to the modern reader, was the part 
Occam took in argument against the Pope's inter- 
ference with the dominion of temporal princes, 
which formed the great question of the day. Pope 
John XXII. was the object of his special invectives, 
whom he charged with introducing new opinions 
and heresies. It was a bold thing, of course, to 
denounce the Pope himself as a heretic ; but Occam 
did so and maintained that a heretical pope might 
be tried by a general council whose decrees it would 
be the duty of the emperor to enforce against him. 



jftancigcan j&cftoolnun. 231 

Nearly a century later these views were acted upon 
by the council of Constance which deposed another 
Pope John ; but Occam had to take refuge from 
the Pope John of his day, and put himself under 
the protection of the duke of Bavaria. He died at 
Munich in 1347. 

The philosophy of Occam exercised undoubtedly 
a very great influence on the age which suc- 
ceeded him. He was "the Invincible Doctor," 
whose arguments it was in vain to contest ; and to 
him was largely due that growing spirit of resist- 
ance to papal supremacy which was exhibited 
among the nations of Europe, and most of all in 
England, from the days of Wycliffe to the Reform- 
ation. It was natural enough that the key-note of 
that resistance should have been first sounded by a 
Franciscan friar, who having himself, like the rest 
of his order, abjured the possession of property, 
looked upon the wealth of the Church as an abuse, 
and desired to see the administration of temporal 
things placed entirely in the hands of temporal 
princes. It was the friars of the Middle Ages, and 
not Wycliffe, who really were the first to shake the 
dominion of the Pope of Rome. It was they who, 
pointing to apostolic poverty, suggested how Chris- 
tianity might be relieved of everything that was 
superfluous and reduced once more to its essential 
principles. In another age, indeed, they grew cor- 
rupt and Wycliffe took up the theme that they had 
dropped, showing no small dislike to the successors 



2.32 



iEarlg ©Jjronfrlors of SEnglanti. 



of the men who had urged it before ; but the spirit 
of the great revolution which shook Europe in 
the sixteenth century lives unmistakably in the 
writings of Occam, who died two hundred years 
before Luther had made himself conspicuous. 




CHAPTER VI. 

THE ST. ALBANS HISTORIANS AND LATER 
MONASTIC CHRONICLES. 

Diminution in the number of monastic chronicles — Compensated at 
first by minuteness of detail — Position of St. Albans as a centre 
of news — First formation of the scriptorium at St. Alban's — Roger 
of Wendover — Plan of his chronicle — His account of the papal 
interdict — Matthew Paris — His characler as an historian — Ex- 
tracts from his chronicle — William Rishanger — Trivet's account 
of Edward I. transcribed by him — Other continuators of Matthew 
Paris — Thomas Walsingham — His account of Wat Tyler's rebel- 
lion — Whethamstede's Register — End of the age of monastic chro- 
nicles — Higden's Polychronicon — Trevisa — Caxton. 

It was not to be expected that the friars could 
leave behind them anything like the voluminous 
and careful histories which monastic chroniclers 
have bequeathed to us. Of all pursuits in the 
world, there is none which demands seclusion and 
study so much as the writing of history ; and, on 
the whole, the life of a friar was not one of seclu- 
sion. While the monk was shut up within his cell, 
having at his command a valuable library, with 
which, and with the aid of borrowed books, he 
could frame new histories of times gone by, the 



234 lEarlg ©grontclerg of lEnglatrtJ. 

friar was abroad in the world, preaching, and 
begging, and tending the sick. Such time as he 
could afford to give to study at all was commonly 
devoted to the congenial subjects of theology and 
physics ; there was little inducement to spend it in 
the investigation of past events. His library, even 
after the brethren were allowed to have books at 
all, was in all probability a scanty one, compiled 
by the labour of his own fraternity, with little or 
no aid from the archives of older institutions. 
Hence the brief and scanty chronicles which these 
men possessed were commonly to a great extent 
original, and were often mainly devoted to the 
history of their own respective orders. 

Indeed, the new stimulus given to thought in 
other directions by the labours of the friars and the 
schoolmen was in itself no small bar to the writing 
of history ; and soon after this we note a consider- 
able falling off in the number of contemporary 
chronicles, even of monastic origin. It is seldom 
found that a great advance in science and scientific 
modes of thinking is accompanied by an increased 
study of the records of past times. On the con- 
trary, it is precisely these things which most excite 
the mind to speculation, and draw it furthest away 
from those sober records which possess a human 
interest to more unsophisticated natures. A pros- 
pective imagination, whether bent on discovering 
the philosopher's stone, or on verifying some new 
theory of life, cannot easily train itself to look 
back, and see if there is any wisdom to be learned 



from the experience of our forefathers in matters of 
every-clay concern. But in the end the scientific 
stimulus reaches history as well as other subjects, 
and historical literature, too, bears the impress of 
deeper and more careful thought. 

So it was in those Middle Ages. Even in the 
thirteenth century the number of monastic chroni- 
cles had very considerably diminished, and it went 
on diminishing still further for fully two hundred 
years, when at length these compositions ceased 
entirely and their place was supplied by writings 
of another kind. But the diminution in the number 
of contemporary histories was at first largely com- 
pensated by improvement in quality and copious- 
ness ; and perhaps no reign in English history, till 
we come to the age of newspapers, has been more 
minutely chronicled than that of Henry III. 

It is to the writings of certain monks of St. 
Alban's that we owe almost all our knowledge of 
that very eventful period ; and the fact that the 
great history of the time was composed within one 
of the largest of English monasteries, is in itself 
suggestive of the new conditions under which 
history was now written. That the monasteries 
were the great repositories of historical learning 
had been for ages undisputed ; but it now appeared 
that the resources of the largest establishments 
could alone furnish satisfactory materials for the 
composition of new histories. Moreover, there was 
an advantage in being near the centre of affairs ; 
St. Albans was not a very long day's ride from 



236 lEarlg ©iKomcIerg of lEnglano. 

London, was frequently honoured by visits from 
royalty, and was generally in communication with 
the court. One of those admirable highways left 
to us by the Romans, stretching out into the "centre 
and north of England, connected the place with the 
metropolis, so that pilgrims and wayfarers fronr 
every quarter received the hospitality of the monks, 
and brought them news of every thing that could 
possibly be worth recording. It was known, too, 
that within the abbey walls a faithful record was 
continually kept up of all that was heard of doing 
in the outside world ; and once, as we have re- 
marked already, Matthew Paris, the official chroni- 
cler of the house, was called upon by the king 
himself to witness a solemnity and put it upon 
record for future ages. 

Matthew Paris, however, was not the first of 
those monastic chroniclers whose personal relations 
with the king and the leading men of the time gave 
him special facilities for collecting information. 
William of Malmesbury was intimate with the 
court of Henry I., and enjoyed the patronage of 
his son the earl of Gloucester. After him, too, 
there had been no lack of historical writers familiar 
with the court, but it is doubtful whether any of 
them belonged to the monastic order. Henry 
of Huntingdon certainly did not, and neither did 
Giraldus Cambrensis. Roger of Hoveden was one 
of King Richard's clerks, was sent by him on con- 
fidential messages between England and the con- 
tinent, and held a commission at one time as justice, 



3% j&t. mUn'$ y&i&toxiawi. 237 

to hold pleas of the forest in Northumberland. But 
all this shows that he was a clerical lawyer, not a 
monk; and it seems as if, just at this particular 
period, the art of narrating events was cultivated 
more largely outside the cloister. Yet the monas- 
teries had never ceased to be the special schools of 
history ; and it would appear that the court had 
begun to take note of the fact in a way it had not 
done before. 

It might even be surmised from the language of 
Matthew Paris that he was occasionally admitted 
to the king's council chamber on some such footing 
as reporters for the press are now to the House of 
Commons. At least, in the year 1236 he is careful 
to tell us not only of a number of new laws approved 
in council for the benefit of the realm, but also of 
one proposed enactment which was discussed, and 
which the king would not agree to. The whole 
tenor of the different ordinances carried on this 
occasion is so minutely recorded, together with the 
substance of the rejected measure, that it is clear 
the report must be regarded as in some sense an 
official one. A great monastery was, in fact, from 
one point of view a treasure-house, in which the 
king himself and his council may have thought it 
advantageous to deposit important documents, or 
have them transcribed and interwoven with a nar- 
rative of current history. That this was actually 
the way in which Henry III. considered it, is more, 
perhaps, than we are quite warranted in asserting 
as a fact : but there is no doubt at all, from what 



238 IHarlg ©fjrontcUrjS of lEnglant). 

Matthew Paris himself tells us, that he sometimes 
admitted the monastic historian to friendly inter- 
course, and even deigned to dispute with him con- 
cerning affairs of state. Nor does it appear that 
this great honour made the writer at all subser- 
vient. On the contrary, he rebuked the king some- 
times to his face, and recorded the rebuke after- 
wards in the pages of his chronicle. 

Facts like these undoubtedly indicate a man of 
great personal weight and independence of judg- 
ment. Yet it is probable that the official position 
of the writer was at that time one of very consider- 
able influence and power. For the St. Alban's 
school of historians had already acquired a very 
high celebrity ; and Matthew Paris himself, in the 
work to which we have alluded — for he was the 
author of several others — was only the continuator 
of a history begun before his day within the walls 
of the same abbey. It is therefore fitting, before 
further reference to his labours, that we should 
bestow a few words upon those of his predecessors. 

It appears from ancient records long preserved 
within the abbey itself that the original formation 
of a scriptorium there was the work of Abbot Paul, 
a Norman, related to Archbishop Lanfranc; that 
two parts of the tithes of Hatfield were given for 
its endowment by a Norman nobleman, who was 
lord of that manor ; and that the abbot had at first 
to hire scribes from other places, Lanfranc supply- 
ing them with manuscripts to copy. Succeeding 
abbots made various contributions of books, among 



*&& j&t. &l&an'0 i^fetonang. 239 

which we hear of a missal bound in gold, and other 
volumes of a similar character with golden illumina- 
tions. Towards the close of the next century, one 
Walter, who filled the offices of librarian and pre- 
centor, is believed to have compiled a chronicle of 
English affairs ending with the death of King 
Stephen ; and this work must have been adapted 
and added to by Roger of Wendover, who suc- 
ceeded him as historiographer of the monastery. 
On the death of Roger of Wendover, again, his 
work was in like manner made use of by Matthew 
Paris as the foundation of a larger and more 
extensive chronicle carried down to later times. 
But the chronicle of monk Walter no longer exists 
as a separate composition ; whereas the work of 
Roger of Wendover is still extant in its original 
form, as well as the larger chronicle in which it was 
incorporated by Matthew Paris. 

The reader will, doubtless, remember one inter- 
esting extract which we have made from Wen- 
dover's chronicle already, giving an account of the 
interviews St. Francis held with the Pope to induce 
him to confirm his rule. From this alone some 
estimate may be formed of the writer's power in 
dealing with telling incidents. Roger of Wendover 
liked a good story occasionally, and told it well. 
But originality does not appear to have been his 
aim. He only selected from the best authors what 
seemed most valuable and interesting to put on 
record. For this reason he entitled his work 
Flowers of History ; and in his introduction he 



240 lEarlg ©Jjronkkrg of iEnglanlJ. 

tells us why. " That which follows," he says, " has 
been taken from the books of Catholic writers 
worthy of credit, just as flowers of various colours 
are gathered from various fields, to the end that 
the very variety, noted in the diversity of the 
colours, may be grateful to the various minds of 
the readers, and, by presenting some which each 
may relish, may suffice for the profit and enter- 
tainment of all." 

It was therefore not for what he wrote from his 
own knowledge, but for what he borrowed from 
other sources that Wendover chiefly claimed atten- 
tion to his work ; and though the judgment of the 
modern historian as to its value is certainly very 
different, we must by no means overlook the plan 
of the work itself. It is divided into two books, 
the first of which is devoted to ancient history from 
the beginning of the world to the Incarnation, 
derived partly from the Old Testament and partly 
from more modern writers, among whom was 
Geoffrey of Monmouth. The second is a com- 
pendium of modern history commencing at the 
Christian era, in the form of annals carried down 
to the author's own time. Not a single year is 
passed by without notice ; and as the preface to 
this part of the work informs us, it gives an account 
of all the popes and emperors of Rome, of various 
bishops, kings, and princes in different parts of the 
world, and of their acts both good and evil. But 
as the narrative comes down to more modern times, 
it is almost exclusively occupied with English 



iftogcr of 22fontio&a?* 241 

history, and the events in which England was very 
largely concerned. It becomes also much more 
full and elaborate ; and from the beginning of King 
John's reign it may be regarded as an original 
work. At the end of the year 1235, the author- 
ship is shown by a note which says, "Thus far 
extend the Chronicles of Master Roger de Wen- 
do ver." 

It appears that this author was at one time pre- 
centor of St. Alban's Abbey, and was afterwards 
appointed prior of the cell of Belvoir belonging to 
that community, but being accused of extravagance 
in his administration he was deposed and recalled 
to St. Alban's. This is supposed to have been 
about the year 123 1. His chronicle, or at all 
events the latter part of it, must have been com- 
posed during the next five years, and apparently 
the later events must have been written down 
almost immediately after they occurred ; for he 
died on the 6th May, 1236, and his narrative comes 
to an end at the close of the year preceding. As 
an historian he is lucid and impartial. It is from 
him we derive most of the information we possess 
about the reign of King John ; and the straight- 
forward simplicity with which he tells the tale, 
denouncing wickedness and injustice where neces- 
sary, without invective or high colouring of any 
kind, is greatly commended by his editor, Mr. 
Coxe. As a specimen of this quiet style we may 
give an extract relating to one of the most inter- 
esting events of the reign, the Papal Interdict : — 

ENG. R 



242 lEatlg @§romclerg of lEnglanU. 

" King John had now for nearly two years, as has been 
said before, unceasingly continued throughout England, on 
account of the interdict, a most severe persecution against 
the clergy as well as some of the laity, and had entirely 
destroyed all kind of hope in every one of any improvement 
or satisfaction, and Pope Innocent could no longer put off 
the punishment of his rebellion. Wherefore, by the advice 
of his cardinals, he, in order to cut up by the root such an 
insult to the Church, gave orders to the bishops of London, 
Ely, and Winchester, to declare the said king excommunicated 
by name, and solemnly to publish this sentence every Sunday 
and feastday in all conventual churches throughout England, 
that thus the king might be more strictly shunned by every 
one. But after the aforesaid bishops had, by the apostolic 
authority, entrusted the publication of this sentence to their 
fellow bishops who had remained in England, and to the 
other prelates of the Church ; they all, through fear of or 
regard for the king, became like dumb dogs not daring to 
bark, wherefore they put off fulfilling the duty enjoined on 
them by the apostolic mandate, and failed to proceed accord- 
ing to the usual course of justice. Nevertheless, in a short 
time the decree became known to all in the roads and streets, 
and even in the places of assembly of the people it afforded a 
subject of secret conversation to all. Amongst others, as 
Geoffrey, archdeacon of Norwich, was one day sitting in the 
exchequer at Westminster, attending to the king's business, 
he began to talk privately with his companions who sat with 
him, of the decree which was sent forth against the king, and 
said that it was not safe for beneficed persons to remain any 
longer in their allegiance to an excommunicated king ; after 
saying which he went to his own house without asking the 
king's permission. This event coming soon after to the 
knowledge of the king, he was not a little annoyed, and sent 
William Talbot, a knight, with some soldiers, io seize the 
archdeacon, and they, after he was taken, bound him in 
chains and threw him into prison. After he had been there 
a few days, by command of the said king, a cap of lead was 



Koger of 22font>oba:. 243 

put on him, and at length, being overcome by want of food 
as well as by the weight of the leaden cap, he departed to 
the Lord." 

From a story like this recorded by a contem- 
porary pen we can realize better than by any other 
means by what influence a despotic king was most 
effectually held in check in the beginning of the 
thirteenth century. As yet the voice of public 
opinion in England itself was weak and had to be 
supported by the public opinion of Christian 
Europe uttered by the head of Christendom ; nor 
was it by any means easy, even thus, to bring a 
tyrant to account. But the wickedness and cruelty 
of King John were surely working out a remedy 
which all his wiliness could not ultimately with- 
stand. The Church, and the barons, and a foreign 
enemy besides, would all have combined against 
him with irresistible force ; and though by his 
abject submission to the papacy he succeeded in 
dividing their powers and turning his most formid- 
able opponent into a friend, he had still to reckon 
with the Church at home united with the barons 
in demanding Magna Charta. 

The chronicle of Roger de Wendover was tran- 
scribed, with some additions, by Matthew Paris, who 
continued it from the year 1235, where his pre- 
decessor left off. The name of this new writer, 
properly Matthew of Paris, (Matthaeus Parisiensis), 
has been supposed to imply that he was either born 
or educated at the Fiench capital ; but so little is 
known of his personal history that this is little 



244 lEarlg ©fjrontclerg of lEnglanD. 

more than conjecture. The name of Paris is found 
as an English patronymic in the thirteenth century. 
Moreover, although our earliest friars came from 
abroad, and even the English members of those 
orders had often studied at that famous centre of 
European scholarship, I believe that the inmates of 
a monastery were commonly natives of the adjoin- 
ing district, and had seldom received the advantages 
of a foreign training. But Matthew Paris was 
certainly a very exceptional monk, and his pecu- 
liar qualities as an historian may well be supposed 
due to an exceptional education. His remarkable 
fluency of style, accompanied as it is by a breadth 
of view and a comprehension of foreign affairs 
rarely found in the untravelled Englishman of that 
day, to which may be added the fact that he was 
acquainted with French, and some evidence in his 
writings of apparent familiarity with the French 
capital, go far to'justify the speculation. At the 
same time there is an evident endeavour in the 
work which we are now considering to continue it 
on the lines laid down by his predecessor, and con- 
fine it for the most part to matters connected with 
the history of England. All his other writings, 
moreover, are equally limited in their scope. His 
pen is recognized in biographies of the two Offas, 
kings of Mercia, (the elder Offa was a mythical 
personage, but they were both believed to have 
been founders of St. Alban's) and of the first 
twenty-three abbots of the monastery, from its 
original foundation to the author's own day So 



J&attiKfo ^arte. 245 



that it would seem, after all, that his affections 
were entirely English and local unless we suppose 
that they were governed by a sense of duty to the 
establishment to which he belonged. 

All we really know about him, however, is that 
he made his profession as a monk of St. Alban's on 
the 2 1st January, 12 17, and that nineteen years 
afterwards, that is to say in 1236, he was appointed 
to succeed Wendover as chronographer to the 
abbey, in which capacity he must have been 
busily occupied till his death, or at least for about 
seventeen years, with one remarkable interruption. 
In 1248 he was sent by the Pope on a special 
mission to the monks of Holm, in Norway, but 
returned after an absence of eighteen months and 
resumed his duties in the abbey. His death must 
have occurred between the years 1253 and 1259. 

It is generally believed that besides being an 
accomplished penman he was also a skilful artist 
and illuminator of manuscripts, and moreover that 
he was a notable worker in gold and silver and 
other metals. Indeed there is very little doubt that 
some of his works of art survive, especially drawings 
in manuscripts ; but the attempt to identify them 
seems to be very hazardous and has led to some 
controversy in our day. Among other things he 
is considered, though even this seems doubtful, to 
have been the author of three curious drawings of 
an elephant sent to England by Lewis IX. in 1255, 
as a present to king Henry III. These are re- 
markable enough in their way as showing the 



246 lEatlg @&ronlcIer$s of lEnglanti. 

strong impression which the creature's dark, mas- 
sive form had made upon the imagination of the 
artist ; and though they may scarcely satisfy the 
critical eye of a generation familiar with the Zoo- 
logical Gardens, they must have been regarded as 
very special treasures at a time when the animal 
was so rarely seen in the West of Europe. If 
they were really the work of Matthew's pencil they 
display a vigour of execution not unworthy of their 
author. 

But whatever may have been the merits of 
Matthew Paris as an artist, it cannot be said that 
he greatly studies artistic effect in writing. His 
narrative is plain, straightforward, and lucid, with 
here and there a little bit of graphic description, 
but it contains nothing that is highly coloured or 
introduced as a mere embellishment. The whole 
interest of the history arises simply out of the facts 
themselves and the truthfulness with which they 
are depicted. The writer was far too much inter- 
ested in what he had to tell to adorn it with mere- 
tricious graces. He was a politician who felt the 
moral significance of all that took place in his day, 
whether in England, at Rome, or in the distant 
East ; and he expresses his judgment without the 
least reserve, alike on the acts of his own sovereign, 
of his countrymen, and of the court of Rome. He 
is, in fact, the most distinctly political historian with 
whom we have yet had to do. He has, no doubt, 
his feelings as a monk, resenting the presumption, in 
some cases, of these new orders of friars, though 



J&attiKfo $atfe. 247 



even here his complaints seem very fair. But his 
thoughts rise altogether above mere class and 
party considerations. He is not so much a monk 
as an English politician, and yet not English ex- 
clusively, but cosmopolitan. His merits, even in 
his own day, as a man of great judgment and 
impartiality seem to have been renowned over 
Europe, for it was at the request of the monks of 
Holm, in Norway, that he was sent thither by the 
Pope to restore discipline in the monastery and 
secure it against the usurpations of the Archbishop 
of Drontheim. 

But it is, of course, as an English politician that 
he is most interesting to ourselves ; and especially 
so, considering the period at which he wrote. The 
progress of the great constitutional struggle be- 
tween the days of Magna Charta and the be- 
ginning of our parliamentary system is a subject 
which stood in special need of illustration from 
such a clear-sighted and impartial spectator. As 
yet, it must be remembered, there are no commons 
to vote supplies ; the king is at the mercy of his 
barons, even in money matters. He has inherited 
a kingdom reduced and weakened by his father's 
misconduct, — a kingdom at one time subjected to 
the Pope, at another too much under the sway of 
foreigners. He himself, having been a minor at his 
accession remained long in tutelage, and was unable 
when he came of age to assert any real indepen- 
dence. His marriage is resented as increasing the 
influence of foreigners; all that he does is con- 



248 lEarfg ©fjroniderg of lEnglanli. 

trolled and sharply criticised ; he is driven hither 
and thither by varying counsels and despised by 
those on whose aid he is dependent. In this state 
of matters we can appreciate a passage like the 
following : — 

" In the year of our Lord 1237, which was the twentieth 
of the reign of King Henry the Third, he held his court, at 
Christmas, at Winchester, whence he forthwith sent royal 
warrants throughout all the English territories, ordering all 
nobles belonging to the kingdom of England, namely, arch- 
bishops, bishops, abbots, installed priors, earls and barons, 
all to assemble without fail in the octaves of the Epiphany 
at London, to arrange the royal business and matters con- 
cerning the whole kingdom. The nobles, on hearing this, 
immediately obeyed the king's summons, and accordingly, 
on the day of St. Hilary, a countless multitude of nobles, 
namely, the whole community of the kingdom, came to Lon- 
don, and proceeded to the royal palace at "Westminster to 
hear the king's pleasure. When they had all taken their 
seats, there stood up in the midst of them one William de 
Kaele, a clerk and familiar of the king's, a discreet man, and 
well skilled in the laws of the land, who, acting as a sort of 
mediator between the king and the nobles, disclosed to them 
the king's pleasure and intentions. ' My lord the king,' he 
said, ' informs you that, whatsoever he may have done here- 
tofore, he now and henceforth will, without hesitation, submit 
himself to the advice of all of you, as his faithful and natural 
subjects. But those men who have till now, in the manage- 
ment of his affairs, been in charge of his treasury, have 
rendered him an incorrect account of the moneys received 
by them, and owing to this the king is now destitute of 
money, without which any king is indeed desolate ; he, 
therefore, humbly demands assistance from you in money, 
on the understanding that the money which may be raised 
by your good will shall be kept to be expended for the 
necessary uses of the kingdom, at the discretion of any of 



J&attfiefo 3Parte. 249 



you elected for the purpose.' When the assembled nobles 
heard this speech, they each and all, not expecting anything 
of this sort, murmured greatly, and — 

Alter in alterius jactantes lumina vultus. 
[Each hearer, lost in dire amaze, 
Turned on his neighbour's face his gaze.] 

And they said to one another — 

Fuderunt partum montes : en ridiculus mus. 
[The labouring mountains shook the earth, 
And to a paltry mouse gave birth.] 

They then replied with indignation that they were oppressed 
on all sides, so often promising and paying, now the twen- 
tieth, now the thirtieth, and now the fiftieth part of their 
property, and they declared that it would be unworthy of 
them, and injurious to them, to allow a king so easily led 
away, who had never repelled or even frightened one of the 
enemies of the kingdom, even the least of them, and who 
had never increased his territories, but rather lessened them, 
and placed them under foreign yoke, to extort so much money 
so often, and by so many arguments, from his natural sub- 
jects, as if they were slaves of the lowest condition, to their 
injury and for the benefit of foreigners. When the king 
heard this, he wished to calm the general discontent, and 
promised on oath that he would never again provoke or 
annoy the nobles of the kingdom by injuring them in that 
way, provided that the thirtieth part of all movable property 
in England was granted and paid to him for his present use ; 
because the large sum of money which he had, a little while 
before, sent to the emperor (as he stated) for the marriage of 
his sister, and also what he had spent at his own marriage, 
had, in a great degree, exhausted his money. To this they 
openly replied, that he, the king, had done all this without 
the advice of his liege subjects, and they ought not to share 
the punishment, as they were innocent of the crime. They, 
however, withdrew to a private place to consult about obey- 
ing the king's demand, and supplying his necessities, and to 



250 lEarlg ©!)rotttckrg of lEnglanfc. 

discuss the kind and quantity of assistance which was de- 
manded. As they were withdrawing for this purpose, Gilbert 
Bassett said to the king, in the hearing of all, and with less 
circumspection of speech than he ought, ' My lord king, send 
some one of your friends to be present at the conference of 
your barons.' He was when he said this, sitting on one side 
of the king, with only a few persons between them ; and, in 
reply to his speech, Richard Percy, who had been at the 
conference of the nobles, and was, not without cause, angry 
at it, said, f What is it, friend Gilbert, that you said ? Are 
we, too, foreigners, and are we not amongst the number of 
the king's friends?' And Gilbert felt himself rebuked by 
this unpleasant and sudden speech. And thus, by a multi- 
plicity of arguments, the conference was protracted for four 
days." 

At another time we find the king's demand of 
money at a council or parliament of his nobles, so 
strenuously resisted that he has recourse to craft 
to attain his end : — 

" He ordered them to wait till the following day to hear 
his wishes concerning this and other matters ; and on the 
morrow he summoned them one by one, at different times, 
into his private chamber, like a priest summoning penitents 
to confession, and, as he could not weaken their determina- 
tion when all together, he cunningly endeavoured to weaken 
them one by one by his arguments, and begged pecuniary 
aid from them, saying, ' See what such an abbot has given 
to aid me, and what such another has given me,' holding out 
at the same time a list, on which he showed a written agree- 
ment that such and such an abbot or prior had given so 
much, or had, at least, promised to give so much, although 
none of them had given their consent thereto, nor even knew 
anything of it. By such false precedents and ensnaring 
words, the king cunningly entrapped a great many ; many 
others, however, stood firm, and would not in any way swerve 



J&attf)«fo ^arte. 251 



from the reply they had agreed on in common, and had 
sworn to abide by. To these the king angrily said, ' Shall I, 
then, be a perjured man ? I have sworn an inviolable oath 
that I would cross the sea, and, with extended arm, demand 
restitution of my rights from the French king, and this I 
cannot in any way effect without a large sum of money, 
which your liberality ought to supply.' " 

It is a wretched condition, certainly, into which 
the crown of England has fallen. But Europe has 
fallen into a wretched condition, too. The horrid 
Tartars have made irruptions as far as Hungary 
and the shores of the Baltic. Dreadful reports 
are spread abroad of the Emperor Frederick II., 
which Matthew Paris can hardly bring himself to 
believe. It is said that he has been a long time in 
alliance with the Saracens ; that he keeps a harem 
of Saracen women ; that he utters blasphemies 
about the Eucharist, and speaks of Moses, Jesus, 
and Mahomet, in the same breath, as three con- 
jurers who had bewitched the world. The crusa- 
ding spirit has gone out, and the Pope now sells 
absolution from crusading vows through the medium 
of mendicant friars. The experiment is even 
pushed a little further ; and the same friars first 
preach remission of sins to all who assume the 
cross for the liberation of the Holy Land, and a 
few days after absolve the very men whom they 
have prevailed upon to do so. The Pope practises 
extortion, levying contributions on religious houses 
in England by much the same arts as the king 
employs with his barons. He also promises the 



252 lEarlg ©fjronfrlerg of lEnglanti. 

Roman people English benefices for their sons and 
relatives on condition of their aiding him against 
the emperor. Such are a few of the indications of 
general demoralisation depicted in the pages of 
our chronicler. 

Yet there is a real revival of the old crusading 
spirit under the king's brother Richard, Earl of 
Cornwall, afterwards King of the Romans, who, in 
spite of a positive prohibition from the Pope, sails 
from France into the East, and is able to send 
home from Palestine good news of his success. 
For he has made a treaty with the Sultan of Egypt 
by which Jerusalem, with a large tract of territory 
besides, is handed over to the Christians ; and the 
monks of St. Alban's remember with pride that 
before starting on his expedition he visited their 
monastery, and desired the benefit of their prayers, 
while the foreign ecclesiastics, sent from Rome to 
collect money in England, regarded his zeal with 
cold indifference. On his return he is received 
with joy by the emperor, who had married his 
sister. Games and festivities of various kinds are 
held in his honour, among which displays he is 
particularly attracted by the performances of two 
handsome Saracen girls, who glided along the 
floor, each on a pair of rolling balls. " They walked 
backwards and forwards," says the chronicler, 
" clapping their hands, moving at pleasure on these 
revolving globes, gesticulating with their arms, sing- 
ing various tunes, and twisting their bodies accord- 
ing to the tune, beating cymbals or castanets 



J&att&efo parte. 253 



together with their hands, and putting their bodies 
into various amusing postures, affording, with the 
other jugglers, an admirable spectacle to the 
lookers-on." The French king shows even higher 
respect for the deliverer of the Holy Land by 
allowing him to negotiate a truce for Henry III. 
at a time when, owing to the king's indiscretion, the 
English army was in danger of being all taken 
prisoners. Only at Rome was Earl Richard re- 
ceived with coldness when he went thither from 
the emperor's court to plead the cause of hi.s 
brother-in-law. 

Of facts like these Matthew Paris appreciates the 
significance, after the fashion of a modern English- 
man, rather than a monk. To us in the present 
day, who perhaps have visited the continent our- 
selves, and who are accustomed every morning to 
read disquisitions on the affairs of other countries, 
as well as of our own, it seems natural enough to 
take a deep interest in the state of Europe gener- 
ally. But no other monk before the days of 
Matthew Paris, and no other writer for a long time 
after him, shows such a clear appreciation of the 
intimate connection between the history of his own 
country and that of other nations. His foreign 
intelligence, moreover, is remarkably good. His 
vivid description of the Tartars, whose irruptions 
spread so much consternation over Europe is 
scarcely inferior to that of Gibbon. "These 
people," he says, "have very large heads, by no 
means proportionate to their bodies, and feed on 



254 lEarlg ©fjtonlclerg of lEnglant). 

raw flesh, and even on human beings ; they are in- 
comparable archers, and cross any rivers in portable 
boats made of hides ; of robust strength and large 
in their bodies, impious and inexorable men ; and 
their language is unknown to all within reach of 
our knowledge. They abound in flocks, herds, and 
breeds of horses; the horses are 'very swift, and 
able to perform a journey of three days in one ; 
the men are well armed in front, but not behind, 
that they may not take to flight ; and their chief 
is a most ferocious man, named the Khan." In 
the year 1238, when they threatened Gothland and 
Friesland we are told that the people of those 
countries did not, as usual, send to Yarmouth for 
herring, and that commodity consequently became 
a drug in the market. One slight drawback, how- 
ever, in this chronicle in point of literary art is that 
the writer occasionally repeats himself a little ; and 
this is the case to some extent in his account of the 
Tartars, to whose doings he is obliged to return 
more than once in the course of his narrative. 

Meanwhile, amid all the disorders of the times, 
we see how England was gradually making her way 
towards a fixed constitution. The king's repeated 
applications to the nobles for money require some 
check to be administered. In 1244, they are con- 
voked in council, and meet in the refectory of 
Westminster Abbey, where the king in person 
urges the great expenses he has incurred in an 
expedition to Gascony, undertaken, as he alleges, 
by their advice. He says nothing of an intended 



Jttattfcfo $arfe. 255 



expedition against Scotland, as to which, apparently, 
their advice was not desired. After the nobles had 
left the refectory, the bishops, abbots, and priors 
took counsel together in a place by themselves, 
and afterwards asked the earls and barons if they 
would agree to their advice in giving an answer. 
The latter replied that they would do nothing 
except by joint consent of all. Four bishops, four 
earls, and four barons were then appointed as 
delegates for the different orders of the peerage, 
whose determination was to be binding on the 
whole body. It was accordingly agreed first to 
demand the redemption of some old pledges, and 
the appointment of a justiciary and a chancellor, as 
serious abuses had grown up for want of such 
officials. The king, to avoid the appearance of 
acting on compulsion, refused the petition, but 
promised some amendment of the matters com- 
plained of, and desired the council to meet again 
at a later date. The nobles then declared that if 
the king would elect such councillors as they should 
approve, and would permit his expenditure to be 
controlled by the twelve delegates, they were will- 
ing to grant supplies. The answer was unaccept- 
able. The king endeavoured to temporize, and, to 
win over the clergy to his will, showed a brief that 
he had procured from the Pope, not without a 
handsome douceur to his Holiness in reward for so 
great a favour, requiring them to make a liberal 
contribution to his necessities. When the bishops 
met together to consider the Pope's letter, the king 



256 lEarlg ©ijronklcrs of 3EnglanD, 

sent to them Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester 
(who at this time acted with him), and some other 
of his friends, to urge their compliance ; after which 
he came himself to protest that their honour was 
as dear to him as his own, and that he expected 
his would be dear to them likewise. But they only- 
persisted in the reply that they would consider the 
matter ; and after he had left them, Grosseteste, 
Bishop of Lincoln, made answer to those who were 
in favour of concession, " Let us not be divided 
from the common counsel ; for it is written, if we 
be divided, we shall all die forthwith." 

Matthew Paris did not live to record the result 
of this long struggle between the king and his 
barons, which, it is well known, culminated in civil 
war some years later. It seems a little uncertain 
when he laid down the pen. The history which he 
began was continued by other hands to the death 
of Henry III., and there is no satisfactory evidence 
of the place at which a change of authorship first 
took place. We only know that it could not have 
been later than the year 1259. Matthew's own 
original intention had been to stop at the end of 
1250, the year of Jubilee, where he distinctly winds 
up the narrative with a few Latin rhymes, intimat- 
ing that the time required rest, and that he will 
not inquire what things the coming age may bring 
forth. It is absolutely certain, however, that he 
resumed his functions of historiographer, and con- 
tinued the work to at least as late a date as the 
year 1259, as in this portion of the narrative he 



Jftattljtfo $atfe. 257 



twice speaks of himself by name ; nor is there any- 
very perceptible change of style till we reach the 
year 1259. But, to judge from internal evidence, 
the work at that date must have been for some 
time discontinued, and when it was resumed by 
another pen, the inmates of the monastery must 
have forgotten how far Matthew Paris had pro- 
ceeded with it before his death. For in the year 
above mentioned, we meet with a remarkable 
rubric which, though it might read as if it had 
been inserted by a still later transcriber, is in all 
probability the work of the continuator himself, 
written in a spirit of humility as the preface to his 
own labours. " It is to be understood," says the 
note in question, " that thus far the venerable man, 
brother Matthew of Paris, is the writer, and though 
the handwriting may vary, yet, as the same style 
of composition is preserved throughout, the whole 
is ascribed to him. But w r hat is hereafter added is 
to be attributed to another brother, who, presuming 
to take in hand hereafter unworthily to continue 
the work of so great a predecessor, although he 
was not worthy to unloose the latchet of his shoe, 
has not deserved to have his name inscribed upon 
the page." 

The writer's name, however, is generally believed 
to have been William Rishanger, who was also the 
author of an independent chronicle of the war be- 
tween Henry III. and his barons. This opinion 
has not passed altogether without question ; for 
although it is admitted on all hands that William 

ENG. S 



258 lEarlg ©Srontckrg of lEnglanti. 

Rishanger was one of the long line of writers who 
continued the St. A /dan's Chronicles, there is no 
very distinct evidence that he was the immediate 
successor of Matthew Paris. We have a memoran- 
dum written by himself, in which he calls himself 
" Cronigraphus," or a writer of chronicles, very 
precisely dated on the day of the Invention 
of the Holy Cross, A.D. 13 12, the fifth year of King 
Edward II. ; and at that date he says that" he had 
been forty-one years a monk, and was sixty-two 
years old. It follows that he was born in the year 
1250 ; and if he was the first monk of St. Alban's 
who took up the pen where Matthew Paris left off, 
the writing of chronicles in that house must cer- 
tainly have been for a long time discontinued. Yet 
it is not at all incredible that Rishanger had to go 
back to a time when he was only nine years of 
age. A period of civil war had intervened, which 
spread alarm even within the seclusion of St. Alban's 
Abbey ; and, as we have seen, the rubric of the 
anonymous continuator (whoever he may have 
been) greatly favours the supposition that the 
writing of chronicles had been suspended for a very 
considerable time. 

Moreover, it is certain, from the separate treatise 
written by Rishanger on the war between Henry 
III. and his barons, which bears his name at the 
commencement, that he actually had bestowed a 
good deal of thought and study on the history of 
the very momentous events which had taken place 
in England in his youth. And it is rather strongly 



&fefjanger':s ©fjronkle. 259 

suggested, by the language he uses at the com- 
mencement, that the work of writing annals and 
investigating historical facts had fallen a good deal 
into disrepute in his day. So that from this cir- 
cumstance also we may quite well believe that the 
task of continuing the chronicle of Matthew Paris 
had been left till his time in abeyance. The fol- 
lowing are the words with which he introduces the 
subject of this treatise : — 

"It has grown a custom, not to be commended, with very 
many who care little about written chronicles, to despise 
books of history, and acts of princes, and, treating those who 
study them with derision, they regard them all as frivolities 
and falsehoods. For whom it is expedient to incline their 
ears, not without shame, to wholesome admonition, that they 
may take care to put a check upon their scurrility, lest, if by 
chance they censure too severely the simplicity of others, un- 
mindful of their own frailty, they be found guilty of denying 
what is true, especially when we see such things declared to 
the knowledge of many persons by holy and catholic men. 
And if any one refuses to submit to this admonition, of what 
great rebuke is he deserving ! Let him hear what is written : — 
' Whatever is most wholesome, whatever commends thee most 
to God, and excites thee to greatest devotion, meditate the 
same, and put it in practice, and study always to follow and 
embrace it.' For that meditation is blessed which is followed 
by fruitful contrition of heart, directing the mind's eye to the 
light of celestial contemplation ; which commonly takes place 
when it is remembered how all the nobility and power of 
mortals passes away with a momentary vanity. For it 
happens not unfrequently that from the remembrance of 
those who have gone before, the mind of a reader is kindled 
with the love of the heavenly country. Since, therefore, some 
of our contemporaries who have devoted much attention to 



25o lEarlg <£l)ronkIa;g of lEnglanfc. 

the investigation of past events are also strengthened in their 
difficulties when they consider how ancient fathers, like gold 
tried by the fire, after being proved by various persecutions, 
have happily passed away hence to the joy above, we, be- 
lieving that our successors are detained meanwhile with like 
employment, have thought good to put in writing those won- 
derful and displeasing events which God has permitted to be 
stirred up in our time for the chastisement of the English 
nation, the sins of the people deserving it ; so that, consider- 
ing how we, with our troubles and our joys alike, have passed 
away like a shadow, they may not only fear the less those 
evils which before the consummation of this age will come 
upon the whole world, according to the Gospel promise, but 
even rise to meet them joyfully, strengthened by the patience 
of God." 

This chronicle, then, was written a generation 
later than the events that it records. The writer, 
who became a monk of St. Alban's in the year 
1 27 1, could not certainly have become the official 
chronicler of the abbey till many years later, though 
it is possible that he was admitted to that office 
some time before 13 12, the year in which he ex- 
pressly styles himself " Cronigraphus." The chro- 
nicle is, therefore, the work of an old, or, at least, 
middle-aged man, relating for the benefit of poste- 
rity the story of what had happened in England in 
the days of his own youth. It is, in fact, the most 
full and complete account of those events which 
we possess, or rather, would have been, if it had 
come down to us entire ; but it is fragmentary 
towards the close, and, by some gross confusion on 
the part of the scribe (for only one manuscript of 
the work has come down to us), the matter has 



Jfttgfmngetr'jJ ©Jjroitfcle. 2 5 1 

been copied in some places in a wrong order. Still, 
the story is told with not a little zest, and with 
great sympathy for the popular hero, Simon de 
Montfort, of whom the author gives us a very high 
character. In the course of the narrative, some 
Latin rhymes are quoted, which, as an expres- 
sion of the popular feeling on the struggle then 
going on, I have endeavoured to translate into 
English verse, of somewhat the same character, as 
follows :— 

" O mourn and weep, sad England, for, full of heavy woe, 
Thou but beholdest miseries which daily bring thee low. 
If Christ do not regard thee now, as He is wont to do, 
Thy name will be a mockery to every haughty foe. 

" Full many a pledge thy sons have given to keep thee safe 

and free, 
But now too little they regard the word they swore to thee ; 
For some who well could aid thee reck not what thy 

dangers be, 
And some evade their promise and escape beyond the sea. 

" Hence others have begun to raise contention in the land, 
And those take sides who ought to join together, hand in 

hand ; 
Nor seek they peace and concord, but against each other 

band ; 
But how to end the things begun they cannot understand. 

" So languishes our common weal, the land is desolate, 
And foreigners grow mighty on the ruin of our state. 
Our native Englishmen are scorned as men of low estate, 
And still must bear with injuries that no tongue dare 
relate. 



?62 Icatlg ©fircmckrg of 1EngIant». 

" The soldier and the churchman both are dumb as any stone ; 
The right of speaking freely is for foreigners alone. 
Not two among a hundred of us English hold our own, 
And all that we attain is grief and shame and bitter moan. 

" O Gloucester's Earl, it is for thee the noble work to achieve 
Which was thine own beginning ; else thou many shalt 

deceive. 
Go, manfully redeem thy pledge, and let us still believe 
The cause which took its source from thee shall strong 

support receive. 

" Or if (which God forbid !) thy hand, thou seek now to with- 
draw, 
A traitor to thy own loved land as never England saw,* 



" Earl Simon, too, of Montfort, thou powerful man and brave, 
Bring up thy strong battalions thy country now to save. 
Be not dismayed by menaces or terror of the grave. 
Defend with might the public cause ; naught else thine own 
needs crave. 

" And thou, Earl Bigod, keep thy word, and lend a helping 
hand, 
As thou a doughty-soldier art, well fitted to command. 
'Tis but a petty rout of dogs in turmoil keeps the land. 
Drive out or quell the cursed race with thy victorious band. 

" Great nobles who have pledged your faith, as ye are English 

lords, 
Keep firmly to your plighted troth, defend it with your 

swords. 
If aught the land may profit by your counsels and accords, 
Let that be done and quickly which ye have ordained in 

words. 

* The third line of this stanza is lost, having been omitted by 
the transcriber, so that it is impossible to complete it in translation. 



Mtefjanger'si ©Dronfcle. 263 

" If that which ye have now begun ye steadfastly maintain, 
The object ye so much desire ye surely may obtain. 
Of long deliberation unless an end ye gain, 
It truly may be said of you, your labour was in vain. 

" To you the highest honour will redound, when all his o'er, 
If, bearing your devices, England freely breathe once 

moie. 
And may God Almighty's mercy from the plague she suffers 

sore 
Soon redeem our wretched country, and sweet peace to her 
restore." 

There is certainly much in common between this 
undoubted chronicle of Rishanger and the con- 
tinuation of Matthew Paris during the same period, 
though the order in which the subjects are treated 
is a little different. At the same time, each has 
some things which the other leaves out. And, to 
refer now to the continuation, we may quote an 
incident related just after the account of the battle 
of Lewes, which, as being in itself of mere local 
interest, may, perhaps, enable us to realize to our 
imaginations the effect of these miserable dissen- 
sions over the whole of England : — 

" At this time, the town of St. Alban's was so carefully 
fortified, and the gates were so strongly secured with locks 
and bolts for fear of war, that all access was denied to those 
who wished to pass through it, especially mounted horsemen. 
At that time Gregory de Stoke, Constable of Hertford, piqued 
at the spirit displayed by the people of St. Alban's, boasted 
that he would enter the town with three attendants, notwith- 
standing the bolts and bars, and would seize and carry off 
with him to Hertford four of the better class of townsmen. 
To carry out his purpose he entered the town and made 



264 lEarlg (S&ronickrs of lEwglanli. 

foolish excursions everywhere, looking about now this way 
now that, as if he was going to perpetrate some great thing. 
At length he said to the lads accompanying him, ' You see 
how the wind stands ? ' Presently a certain butcher, thinking 
he meant to burn the town, said, ' I will teach you how the 
wind stands,' and gave him a blow on the face with such 
violence that he fell at his feet upon the ground. The people 
then seized him and his lads and bound them with iron rings 
and fetters ; and in the morning their heads were cut off by 
the butchers, and were fixed upon long stakes and placed at 
the four ends of the town. But the king, when he heard of 
it, fined the town a hundred marks, which was immediately 
paid." 

Whether we are right or wrong in our conjecture 
that the work of Matthew Paris was only continued 
by Rishanger after a long interval, it is certain, at 
least, that Rishanger and succeeding writers made 
the narrative complete, and carried it on without 
a break-down to the death of Henry V. on the 
same plan. Through the whole of that period the 
fullest original account we possess of all that took 
place in England is to be found in the series of the 
St. A Ibaris Chronicles ; and even if not in all parts 
written at the date of the events themselves, it is 
in the form of annals such as those which Matthew 
Paris, there can be little doubt, wrote down while 
the news of all that occurred was fresh in the 
mouths of every one. At the end of each year, 
also, these writers systematically gave an account 
of its meteorological and other characteristics, 
showing whether it had been a good year, or the 
reverse, for corn and fruits ; whether there had 



{Eribst'ss (JDJjronick Iftarrofocb. 265 

been violent storms, floods, or famines, and whether 
there had been any other special causes affecting 
the general happiness of the people. During the 
whole period, from the reign of Henry III. to that 
of Henry V., such an annual register will be found 
in the St. A /dan's Chronicles. 

How far Rishanger's contribution to this series 
was an original composition, it is difficult to say ; 
for during the whole reign of Edward I., in which 
we might expect him to take his place as a con- 
temporary writer, the account of events in the St. 
Alban's Chronicles seems to be borrowed, almost 
word for word, with the exception of the meteoro- 
logical register just referred to, from the chronicle 
of the Dominican Friar, Nicholas Trivet, of which 
we made some mention in the last chapter. In 
one place, indeed, where the St. Alban's writer 
abridges the catalogue of the works of Thomas 
Aquinas, given by Trivet, he expressly refers to 
that writer's chronicle by name. So that there 
seems very little doubt that it is the St. Alban's 
writer who has borrowed all along from Trivet, not 
Trivet from the St. Alban's writer. We will there- 
fore take the opportunity in this place of giving 
the reader a specimen of the style of the pains- 
taking and accurate Dominican, which we refrained 
from doing before to avoid chronological confusion. 
The following is Trivet's personal description of 
King Edward : — 

" Edward, King of the English, the eldestborn of Henry III. 
by Eleanor, daughter of the Count of Provence, had completed 



266 ^arlg ©Ijrotucferg of ^nglant). 

thirty-three years and five months of his age on the day he 
was about to succeed * his deceased father in the kingdom. 
He was a man of proved foresight in the conduct of affairs, 
devoted to the exercise of arms from his boyhood, by which 
he acquired for himself in divers regions that fame in which 
he singularly outshone the princes of all the Christian world 
in his day. He was of handsome figure, of majestic stature, 
in which he overtopped ordinary people from the shoulder 
upwards. His hair in boyhood, from a colour almost silvery, 
bordering upon yellow, but in youth changing to black, adorned 
his old age with locks of a swan-like whiteness. His forehead 
was broad, and the rest of his face likewise, except that the 
drooping eyelid of his left eye betrayed a resemblance to his 
father's glance. With a stammering tongue he yet had no 
lack of eloquence to persuade when there was any occasion 
for oratory. In proportion to his body his arms were long 
and supple ; there were no arms to match them for nervous 
vigour and skill in sword fence. His breast was more 
prominent than his belly, and the length of his thighs when 
his charger reared and galloped, prevented the rider from 
ever losing his seat. 

When not engaged in warfare he indulged both in hunting 
and fowling, but especially in the hunting of stags, which he 
was wont to pursue with swift horses, and to transfix when 
taken, with a sword instead of a hunting-spear. That he 
lived under the special protection of the Most High God 
might be very well known, not merely because when a youth 
engaged at chess with a certain knight in a chamber with 
a vaulted roof, he suddenly rose and departed in the middle 
of the game without any occasion being offered, and a stone 
of enormous size, which would have crushed him, fell in the 
very place where he had been sitting ; but also from the 
fortunate issue of various other dangers which he frequently 

* It must be remembered that the legal maxim, " The king never 
dies " did not hold good in those days. The successor of a deceased 
king was not accounted as actually king till he was crowned. 



%vibtt , $ @t)ro.niek 2Sortofort). 267 



incurred, as the studious reader may note later on in our 
narrative. There was in him a noble spirit, impatient of 
injuries and forgetful of dangers while he sought for vengeance, 
yet capable of being easily softened by a show of humility. 
For once, while engaged in hawking near a river, he chid 
one of his attendants on the other side of the stream for 
having carelessly allowed a falcon to fly at a duck among 
some willows ; and on finding, as it seemed, no attention 
paid to his rebuke, he added threats. The other, perceiving 
that there was neither bridge nor ford near at hand, replied 
promptly it was enough for him that the river divided them 
from each other ; on which the king's son, enraged, plunged 
into the water without knowing its depth, and swimming his 
horse, crossed the stream. Then ascending with difficulty a 
bank, made hollow by the course of the river's channel, he 
drew his sword and pursued the other, who, having now 
mounted his horse, was flying before him ; but, despairing 
of escape, turned back, and, with bared head, put forth his 
neck and submitted himself to Edward's will. On this the 
king's son, checked in nis fury, replaced his sword in the 
scabbard, and they both returned in peace to see to the 
neglected falcon." 

After Rishanger the St. Alban's Chronicles were 
continued by two writers, named John de Trokelowe 
and Henry de Blaneforde, down to the middle of the 
reign of Edward II. In that of Edward HI. there is 
not much evidence of the work having been carried 
on by any contemporary pen within the walls of the 
abbey. But Thomas Walsingham, who was pre- 
centor and " scriptorarius," or principal scribe, at 
St. Alban's in the reign of Richard II., recast the 
work of Trokelowe and Blaneforde, with some 
additions from other sources, and carried it down 
to his own times. This fact is certain ; but how 



268 ^arlg ©fjroniclerg of sEnglanD. 

far he carried it down in his own time is another 
question. We know that he lived till at least very- 
near the end of Henry V.'s reign, and that he dedi- 
cated to that king-, after the conquest of Normandy, 
a work of very similar character to his English 
history which he called Ypodigma Neustrics. More- 
over, the English History itself, which goes by his 
name, comes down all the way to the death of 
Henry V., in 1422, and a considerable portion of 
the later narrative, as far as the year 14 19, is word 
for word the same as in the Ypodigma. Yet Mr. 
Riley, Walsingham's most recent editor, has, 
strangely enough, found reasons for thinking that 
the English History is not really Walsingham's 
own composition after the year 1392 ; and that, 
although he was an original writer in the time 
of Richard II., he adopted as his own in the 
Ypodigma the work of some one else who had 
written a history of current events in the two 
succeeding reigns. 

This is not the place for controversy, but I must 
simply say that the evidences adduced for this 
extraordinary opinion seem to me singularly weak. 
It is quite true that one manuscript of th history 
terminates in the year 1392, and that "ter that 
date the narrative is for some years les? full and 
satisfactory. But a sufficient explanatk i of this 
may, I think, be found in the personal history of 
the author, who was removed from the monastery 
of St. Alban's in 1394, and made prior of Wymond- 
ham in Norfolk. In 1400 he ceased to be prior of 



tWjomag 22JaIgtngSam. 269 

Wymondham, and in all probability returned to 
St. Alban's, where he would naturally resume 
those literary labours which had been interrupted 
by other duties elsewhere. Nor is there anything 
that I can see of the nature of internal evidence 
to create a doubt that the writer of the history 
during the reigns of Henry IV. and Henry V. is 
the same as the writer of the history in Richard 
II.'s time. On the contrary, the style is the same 
throughout. 

Walsingham is stated by ail writers to have been 
a native of the county of Norfolk ; and his name, 
in that case, probably indicates the exact place of 
his birth — Thomas of Walsingham. He appears 
to have been educated at Oxford, and, in speaking 
of Wycliffe, laments sadly the favour shown to 
heresy by his Alma Mater. " How greatly," he 
says, " the modern proctors or rulers of that univer- 
sity have degenerated from the prudence or wisdom 
of their predecessors may be easily conjectured 
from this — that, on hearing of the cause of the 
coming of the said papal nuncio " (meaning one 
who had brought a bull of Gregory XI. against 
Wycliffnt, "they were, for a long time, undecided 
whether mey ought to receive the papal bull with 
honour, i? altogether reject it with disgrace. Oh, 
general s eudy of Oxford, with what a heavy lapse 
thou hast fallen from the summit of wisdom and 
learning ! For, whereas thou wast formerly wont to 
unravel the doubts and perplexities of the whole 
world, now, darkened by a cloud of ignorance, thou 



270 lEarlg Chroniclers of lEnglanl). 

dost not fear to doubt the things which it does 
not become any one to doubt, even among lay- 
Christians. I am ashamed to remember such im- 
prudence, and therefore avoid dwelling on this 
subject, lest I may seem to wound with my teeth 
those maternal breasts which used to give milk, 
and nourish with the beverage of knowledge." 

Walsingham is a very important writer. It is 
from him, although a hostile critic, that we learn a 
great part of what we know about Wycliffe. From 
him, too, comes most of our information about Wat 
Tyler's insurrection, about the Wonderful Parlia- 
ment, and generally speaking about the reigns of 
Richard II., and of the Fourth and Fifth Henry. 
In connection with the subject of Wat Tyler's in- 
surrection, he gives us a pretty complete account of 
the preaching of one whom he very unjustly regards 
as Wycliffe's true disciple — the incendiary priest, 
John Balle, who addressed the multitude at Black- 
heath on the well-known theme : — 

" Whan Adam dalf and TLvb span 
Wo was thanne a gentilman ? " 

Although the terror inspired by Tyler's insurrec- 
tion was greatest in the metropolis, the monastery 
of St. Alban's had no small share in the alarm. 
The townsmen, tenants of the abbey in villenage, 
went up to London to join the revolt, and consult 
with their fellow-bondmen and Wat Tyler himself 
how to free themselves from all the restrictions 
imposed by their special tenure. They returned, 



©Ijoraass S&algmgtmnu 271 

threatening to set fire to the abbey if their demands 
were not conceded, and the prior and four of the 
monks whom they specially denounced fled for 
their lives to their northern cell at Tynemouth. 
The abbey was besieged by an army of serfs, 
clamouring for the surrender of certain ancient 
charters which they had been taught to believe 
ought to have freed them long ago from bondage. 
Nothing of the kind existed, but the abbot was 
obliged to concede to them whatever charters they 
demanded. They burst into the abbot's parlour 
and carried away some millstones which had been 
placed as a pavement at the door in memory of an 
ancient law-suit gained by the abbey against the 
town. They broke these stones into fragments, and 
gave each man a piece, "as blessed bread on Sundays 
is divided and given in parish churches," says our 
historian. Thus, every one was able to preserve 
a memorial that they had taken vengeance in that 
matter on the monastery. But these things are as 
nothing to what is recorded of the wild doings in 
London ; how the mob broke into the Tower and 
beheaded the Archbishop of Canterbury and the 
lord treasurer, and every one who did not promise 
to join their party. " I have learned from a trust- 
worthy reporter," says Walsingham, " that thirteen 
Flemings were violently dragged out of the church 
of the Austin Friars in London, and beheaded in 
the public streets ; and from another parish church 
in the same city seventeen ; all of whom, without 
reverence of sanctuary or fear of God (for at the 



272 lEarlg ©ftsomclerg of lEnglant). 

time that accursed crowd had no respect for man), 
were murdered by the same process of decapita- 
tion." Altogether, the picture drawn of this one 
great socialistic movement of the Middle Ages is 
truly most appalling. Nothing more horrible, it 
may be safely said, has ever taken place on Eng- 
lish ground. 

In the later portion of Walsingham's chronicle, 
the principal subject of interest is of course the 
story of Henry V.'s campaigns in France. But the 
narrative is more remarkable for fullness of infor- 
mation than for liveliness or vigour of description. 
For it must be owned Walsingham had very little 
of the graphic power of his great predecessor, 
Matthew Paris, though he framed his work on the 
same model ; nor does he group his facts together 
in such a masterly way. It is hardly fair, however, 
to expect military ardour in a monk. Though he 
followed Henry's progress in France with that 
interest which it could not fail to excite in every 
Englishman, there were subjects at home, such 
as Oldcastle and the Lollards, on which he dis- 
plays a still greater amount of feeling ; and without 
sympathising with what he says on these matters 
we feel that his account of them is even more sig- 
nificant than any description of military achieve- 
ments could be. For they tell us what was passing 
in the very hearts of men, not merely what they 
were doing in the world. 

With Walsingham the regular sequence of chron- 
icles in continuation of Matthew Paris comes to an 



Wt)ttf)sim$UW& &egfeter. 273 

end. For about thirty years after the death of 
Henry V. no record of the events of English history 
seems to have been kept at St. Alban's, or, if kept, 
has been preserved. But in the year 1451, John 
Whethamstede, who had already been abbot of St. 
Alban's once before and resigned the dignity, was 
again elected abbot, and one of his first acts seems 
to have been to institute a register of the things 
done under his second prelacy. This register, when 
it was commenced, had probably no other object 
than to record transactions relating to the affairs of 
the abbey ; but it was not long before political 
events of the highest magnitude were related along 
with them. For in the year 1455 the fires of civil 
war, which had long been smouldering, at length 
burst into a flame, and the first battle between the 
Red Rose and the White was fought in the streets 
of St. Alban's under the very walls, one might say, 
of the monastery. This fact leads the writer to a 
review of the causes of the war, and from that date 
to the close of the register in 14.61, after the battle 
of Towton and the attainder of the Lancastrians 
under Edward IV., there are a number of very 
valuable notices of the events of that troubled 
period. 

The age of monastic chronicles had now really 
passed away. Only one composition of the kind — 
the Chronicle of Croyland with its four continua- 
tions — went beyond the history of Walsingham 
and dragged on a fitful existence to the accession 
of King Henry VII. That, too, is an important 

ENG. T 



274 lEarlj! ©Stoniclerg of lEnglant). 

source of history, but mainly for the times of 
Edward IV. and Richard III. To whatever cause 
we may attribute the fact — relaxation of discipline, 
the growth of commerce, or the use of other agen- 
cies — monasticism had even now lost considerablyits 
hold upon the world. Amid the political confusions 
of the times the writing of current history seems 
to have been forgotten. One part of England, 
very probably, knew little of what was doing some- 
where else, and there were no longer monkish 
scribes in direct communication with the court, 
who could not only collect but weigh the value 
of intelligence from every quarter of the world. 
Moreover, as to the history of past times, one very 
celebrated chronicle of which we have yet to speak 
had so completely superseded all former efforts of 
the kind that it seemed utterly unnecessary to do 
more in this respect than multiply copies of the 
Polychronicon. 

This was the work of Ralph Higden, a monk in 
the wealthy abbey of St. Werburgh, Chester, who, 
in the reign of Edward III., formed a grander design 
of a universal history than the world had yet seen 
realised. The library of St. Werburgh's was well 
stocked with books, not only on history but on 
geography, topography, natural history, and every 
department of human knowledge. Higden himself 
was a literary glutton who devoured all kinds of 
literature, and he laid all the stores of ancient and 
modern learning under contribution for a com- 
plete history of the world. He lived to a good old 



^gtien'g ^olgdjronucm. 275 



age and was able to complete his extraordinary 
undertaking; but beyond these facts we hardly 
know anything whatever of his personal history. 
He was born, it is said, somewhere in the west of 
England, but in what precise year we have no 
means of ascertaining. He is believed to have 
taken monastic vows in or about the year 1299, 
and according to a note in an early manuscript he 
died in 1363.* From his own writings it appears 
that he had travelled so far as to be familiar with 
Derbyshire, Shropshire, and Lancashire ; but there 
is no satisfactory evidence that he ever visited 
foreign countries. All the information he possessed 
about them was derived from books alone. 

The title that he gave to his work is explained 
by himself to mean that it is a history of many 
periods or ages. It was undertaken at the request 
of his fellow monks, to whom his comprehensive 
intellect and his peculiar fitness for the task of an 
historian must have been well known. He himself 
had at first proposed to compile from various 
sources a history of his native country, but he 
was encouraged to enlarge the scope of the work 
and make it a universal history. He divided the 
whole into seven books, after the example, he says, 
of the First Worker, who made everything in six 

* Which probably means 1364 by our modern computation, as 
the time of year, according to Bale, was about the feast of St. 
Gregory, i.e. about March 12. This point has been overlooked by 
Professor Babington in his interesting introduction to the Polychro- 
nicon. 



276 lEarlg ©fjronute of lEnglanfc. 

days and rested on the seventh. He also aimed at 
a more perfect system of chronology, noting the 
dates of events according to more than one com- 
putation of years ; and he points out in an early 
chapter some of the errors of former systems. He 
begins by explaining the plan of the work and 
giving a catalogue of his authorities. He also warns 
the reader that certainty in historical matters is not 
always to be looked for, and that he cannot abso- 
lutely guarantee the truth of everything he relates. 
For even the Apostle, he observes, does not say, 
" Whatsoever things were written are necessarily 
true," but only "Whatsoever things were written 
were written for our learning." (Rom. xv. 4.) At 
the same time it would be wrong to reject every- 
thing wonderful as if it were on that very account 
incredible. He will therefore simply reproduce in 
his own words the information derived from other 
writers, shielding himself against responsibility by 
naming the authors he has followed at the head of 
every chapter ; and any observations of his own 
that he may think fit to introduce he will distin- 
guish by an initial R. 

With these and some other preliminary remarks 
he begins first an account of the dimensions of the 
habitable world, derived from Ptolemy and a writer 
called Priscianus, by which he is led to infer that 
the circumference of the whole earth is 20,040 
miles, giving a diameter of nearly 6500 miles, or 
more exactly, 6491 ; so that from the centre of 
the earth to the surface should be 3245 miles and 



P^igton'ss $3oIgri)rcmicoit, 277 

a fraction of a mile over. And this, if the current 
belief was true as to the position of hell, must be 
the distance of that world of woe from the surface 
of our earth. He then goes on to describe from 
St. Augustine, Bede, Pliny, and others, the bounda- 
ries and extent of Europe, Asia, and Africa, their 
climates and their populations, the Mediterranean 
Sea, and the ocean which encircled the world, the 
different provinces of the earth, and the physical 
geography of each. In the course of this survey 
he is led to a disquisition concerning the situation 
of Paradise, which, following the opinion of the 
French divine, Petrus Comestor, he considers 
not to have been submerged with the rest of the 
world in Noah's flood. In his account of India, 
along with much fabulous matter about extraordi- 
nary dragons and the battles of pigmies and cranes, 
men with the heads of dogs, and other monsters, 
he speaks of the institutions of caste and widow- 
burning. He then devotes a chapter to the wonders 
of ancient and modern Rome, and another to the 
institutions of the ancient Romans. Then follows 
a lengthened description of the countries of modern 
Europe, their inhabitants, and their principal pro- 
ducts. The chapters devoted to this part of the 
work are of very unequal interest ; but as a speci- 
men of the facts contained in them, it is mentioned 
that Brabant was then famous for the dyeing of 
wool, which it received from England and trans- 
mitted to other countries. Although England pro- 
duced the best of wools, it had not water suitable 



27S leads ©fjrontclerg of lEnglanti. 

for dyeing. There was, however, a well at London, 
and a particular place in the river which passed 
through Lincoln, which enabled the dyers to pro- 
duce a very beautiful scarlet. 

After his account of the different countries on 
the continent of Europe, and of the islands of 
the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, he 
devotes four chapters to Ireland, the information 
in which is derived from Giraldus Cambrensis, one 
to Scotland, and one to Wales. At last he comes 
to his own country, and concludes the first of his 
seven books with twenty-two chapters upon the 
geography, climate, physical characteristics, and 
natural wealth of England, its political and eccle- 
siastical divisions, its original inhabitants, and the 
language and manners of the natives. 

It is unnecessary to describe the other six books 
at so much length. The really historical part of 
the work commences with the second, which con- 
tains a history of the world, from the Creation to 
the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem by 
Nebuchadnezzar. The third extends from the 
Babylonish captivity to the birth of Christ. The 
fourth ends with the coming of the Saxons into 
England. The fifth continues the narrative to the 
invasion of the Danes. The sixth concludes with 
the Norman Conquest. And the seventh carries 
down the story to Higden's own time, the middle 
of the reign of Edward III. But the work is of 
no great value, even in the latter part, as an original 
authority, and little reference has been made to it 



3Jo5n fflxitUzs. 279 



by any of our modern historians. Its real interest 
lies in the view it affords of the historical, geo- 
graphic, and scientific knowledge of the age in 
which it appeared. No work was ever so wonder- 
fully popular. No such voluminous, exhaustive, 
and interesting history, had ever yet been written. 
It was reproduced certainly by more than a hun* 
dred copyists within a century after its publication. 
It was translated into English by more than one 
person. An epitome of it issued from Caxton's 
press as early as 1480. Two years later, Caxton 
published the work itself in Trevisa's English 
translation. Another edition appeared in 1483 ; 
and later editions still were issued by Wynkyn de 
Worde and others in the end of the fifteenth and 
early part of the following century. 

John Trevisa, Higden's translator, was a Cornish 
man, who had studied at Oxford, and was a fellow 
of Queen's College there. He was vicar of 
Berkeley, in Gloucestershire, and canon of the 
collegiate church of Westbury, but whether this 
was Westbury in Gloucestershire, or the place of 
the same name in Wiltshire is uncertain. He had 
travelled in foreign countries ; and in a treatise 
which he wrote on the hot springs of Bath he 
speaks of having bathed in those of Aix la 
Chapelies, and Aix in Savoy, the former of which 
places he calls Akon, and the latter Egges. He 
seems to have devoted much time to literary 
pursuits, and translation of good works was his 
special delight. Among his original writings is a 



ISarlg ©Ijronfrfrrg of 1£n<jlanti. 



dialogue on translation between a lord and a clerk, 
who are to be understood as representing his patron, 
Lord Berkeley, and himself. Caxton says that he 
also made a translation of the Bible ; of which no 
manuscript is known to exist, though one, perhaps, 
may be at this day in the Vatican at Rome. He 
translated Occam's celebrated dialogue between 
a soldier and a clergyman, concerning the limits of 
papal and imperial power. He also translated a 
sermon preached by Fitzralph, archbishop of 
Armagh, at Oxford, in 1 357, against the mendicant 
friars. He dedicated his translation of the Poly- 
chronicon to his patron, Thomas, Lord Berkeley, 
whose chaplain he styles himself. It was finished, 
as he particularly informs us, on Thursday, the 
1 8th day of April, 1387, being the tenth year of 
Richard II., and "the yere of my lordes age, Sir 
Thomas, lord of Berkeley, that made me make this 
translacion, fyve and thyrtty." By some strange 
error, Caxton, who printed the work a century 
later, misread the date 1387 as 1357, and to make 
the rest correspond, corrected the tenth year of 
Richard II. into the thirty-first of Edward III. 
He was misled, apparently, by the fact that 1357 
is the last year mentioned in the narrative ; but 
the events actually recorded come down as late 
as 1360. Caxton, however, printed the work, not 
exactly as he found it, but, as he tells us, " a lytel 
embelysshed fro th'olde makyng," and added a 
continuation to the accession of Edward IV. In 
the course of little more than a century it seems 



3JoJjn Ztebizs. 



Trevisa's language had become so antiquated that 
Caxton felt it necessary to change "the rude and 
old Englyssh, that is to wete, certayn wordes which 
in these days be neither usyd ne understanden." 
It is a curious fact in the history of our language 
that English of the time of Chaucer had already 
become to a great extent unintelligible in the days 
of Edward IV. 

It cannot be said that either the work of Trevisa, 
or the continuation of it by Caxton is of much 
value or interest now-a-days, except in a philo- 
logical point of view. Even as a translation the 
former possesses no great merit ; for Trevisa was 
not a man of much scholarship, and he himself 
makes the very candid confession, " Though I can 
speke, rede, and understande Latyn, there is moche 
Latyn in these books of Cronykes that I cannot 
understonde, nether thou, without studyeng, avise- 
ment, and lokyng of other bookes." This is the 
more remarkable, as Higden's Latin is really very 
good, and not by any means difficult of compre- 
hension. If it had been more like the Latin of the 
mass-book, or the ordinary Latin of the cloister, 
doubtless Trevisa would have understood it better ; 
but a solitary country clergyman in those days 
could not be expected to be familiar with classical 
models, or to have many opportunities for the 
" lokyng of other books." 

We have thus carried the records of the monks, 
down to the era of printing ; and we may note 
it as a symptom of the decline of the monastic 



lEarlg ©Ijromefcrg of lEnglanb. 



chronicle that even before that date there seems 
to have been a large demand for histories written 
in English instead of Latin. It is a remarkable 
fact that while so many editions of Trevisa's 
translation of Higden issued from the press of 
Caxton and his immediate successors the Latin 
text of the Polychronico?i has never to this day- 
been printed in its entirety.* If monkish litera- 
ture had not already received its death blow, the 
appearance of the printing press must inevitably 
have sealed its fate. And yet it perhaps speaks 
something for the life of monasticism, only sixty 
years before its final extinction, that the father of 
English printing was encouraged to set up his press 
within the precincts of Westminster Abbey. He was, 
it is true, only the abbot's tenant, living in the 
aimonry outside the abbey gates. When he talks 
of his works being printed " in the abbey," he only 
means, within the abbey precincts. But it is 
highly probable that his labours met with cheerful 
recognition and encouragement from a community 
in which the work of the copyist was now plainly 
superseded. That, indeed, was dreary work at the 
best, and hosts of clerical errors in some of their 
productions bear witness how it dulled the brain ; 
so that we need not wonder if the monks at West- 
minster were tired of it. Apparently even the 
deciphering of earlier writings was not much 

* An edition of the Latin text accompanied by Trevisa's and 
another old English translation is at this time in process of publica- 
tion in the Rolls series. 



STOtam ©aiton. 283 



practised among them then, and Caxton's services 
were sometimes called to help in it. " My lord 
abbot of Westmynster," he tells us in his preface 
to the Eneydos, " did do shewe to me late certayn 
evydences wryten in old Englisshe, for to reduce it 
into our Englisshe now usid."* 

Caxton, therefore, may in one point of view be 
considered the successor of the monastic scribe 
and copyist. And not only did he multiply by 
his press the copies of Trevisds Higden ; but he 
also published in the very same year, a chronicle 
of his own, founded on the old Chronicle of the 
Brute, which he continued to the accession of 
Edward IV. and the battle of Towton in 1461. 
The first printer, therefore, at once took the place 
not only of the monastic scribe but also of the 
monastic chronicler. 

* Quoted by Mr. Blades in Biography of Caxton, 74. (ed. 1S77.) 




CHAPTER VII. 



RECORDS OF THE CITY. 



The Liber de Antiquis Legibus — French Chronicle of London — The 
Liber Albus — The Chronicle of Londoit — Gregory's Chronicle — 
Account of Jack Cade's rebellion — Adventures of Margaret of 
Anjou — The Mayor of Bristol's Kalendar — Fabyan's Concord- 
ance of Llistories — M ore's History of Richard III. — Extract — 
Shakespeare dramatised More's works — Harding's Chronicle — 
Hall's Chronicle — Polydore Vergil's History — Grafton's historical 
works — John Stow — His Summary, his Chronicle, and his Survey 
of London — Ireland — Holinsheds Chronicle — Sources of Shakes- 
peare's historical plays. 

In the record room of the Guildhall of London 
is an ancient manuscript, known as the Liber 
de Antiquis Legibus. It is a folio volume of 
very miscellaneous contents, compiled, however, 
as we may reasonably judge, for the purpose 
indicated by its title — to preserve a record of the 
laws, privileges, and liberties of the city. The 
date of its composition appears to have been at 
the commencement of the reign of Edward I., 
when the contents were systematically divided 
into chapters, with an index prefixed. But the 
first chapter and three others in the body of the 
manuscript were left blank by the compiler, 



SoniJon ©i)?cmteleg. 285 



and the space allotted to them was used at 
a later date for the insertion of other matters. 
Only two of the chapters properly constitute that 
book of ancient laws from which the volume derives 
its name. But among the other matters, are ex- 
tracts from the English history of William ol 
Malmesbury, and a later Chronicle * of the mayors 
and sheriffs of London, with the events which 
occurred in each mayoralty, from the first year of 
Richard Cceur de Lion, when the city was incor- 
porated, to the year 1274, where the record ends 
with an account of the preparations for Edward 
the First's coronation. 

This is the earliest of a number of city chronicles, 
which continued for centuries to be composed in the 
same form, or nearly so. They were drawn up in 
the shape of annals, with the names of the mayor 
and sheriffs for each year at the head of the record 
of that year's transactions. This earliest chronicle, 
however, differs slightly from its successors, in 
exhibiting only the sheriffs' names at the head ot 
the year, and mentioning the names of the mayor 
elected in the text. It is devoted also, for the 
most part, to civic events, which, however, are 
of course in some cases of considerable political 
importance. At the commencement, indeed, the 
record of many years is left blank, and nothing but 
the names of the sheriffs is given. But in the 

* Published by the Camden Society. Edited by Thomas Staple- 
ton, Esq. 



286 lEatlg ©ftronickrg of lEnglant). 

reign of Henry III. the annals become of more 
general interest, owing to the important part taken 
by the city of London in the struggle between the 
king and his barons ; and besides a summary of 
events, a number of royal letters and other docu- 
ments are quoted in the text. 

A French Chronicle of London, published like 
the preceding by the Camden Society,* extends 
from the forty- fourth year of Henry III., to the 
seventeenth of Edward III. French was at that 
time the language of the king's court, and of the 
courts of law. This chronicle seems to be quite 
independent of the preceding. It is difficult to say 
from what sources the earlier part was compiled, 
in which we find the insults offered by the citizens 
to Eleanor of Provence, the queen of Henry III., 
attributed to their resentment of her cruelly having 
put to death the fair Rosamond ! A slight con- 
fusion this between the reign of Henry III., and 
that of Henry II., each of whom happened to 
have a queen named Eleanor. Nevertheless, this 
chronicle seems to have been composed with care, 
and its statements are generally accurate. 

The preservation of such records must have been 
important to the civic authorities for the protection 
and maintenance of municipal rights. The city 
liberties were on various pretences repeatedly seized 
by King Henry III., and King Edward I., who 
imprisoned the mayor and other leading citizens, 
and placed the city under the control of a custos 

* Edited by George James Aungier. 



Sontion ©Srontcfess. 287 

or warden. Yet these things were not done with- 
out strong remonstrances and appeals to ancient 
custom. The city had its own officers, its own laws, 
and its own system of jurisprudence — all parts 
of an unwritten constitution, founded upon the 
charters of several kings, beginning with the 
Conqueror. No complete account of its laws 
and usages seems to have been compiled till the 
beginning of the fifteenth century. But the two 
great pestilences which visited England in the 
reign of Edward III. suggested strongly the ex- 
pediency that such a work should be undertaken ; 
for all the old and experienced men were then cut 
off, and those who succeeded them in the govern- 
ment of the city were often at a loss for want of 
written directions and precedents how to act. Still 
the labour was an arduous one, and was long 
delayed. But at length, in the year 1419, in the 
third mayoralty of the celebrated Richard Whit- 
tington, what is called the Liber Aldus of the 
city of London was composed by the town clerk, 
John Carpenter ; and from its pages we derive a 
very remarkable mass of information, not only as 
to the rights and liberties of the city, but also as to 
its ancient social condition and customs. The sub- 
stance of these revelations is given by Mr. Riley, 
who edited this volume for the Master of the Rolls, 
in an introduction of considerable length. 

After this we meet with chronicles of the city of 
London written in English, on the same model as 
those earlier ones in Latin and in French. One of 



288 lEarlg ©JEjronulerg of lEngTanD. 

these, published by Sir Harris Nicolas in 1827, 
under the title The Chronicle of London, appears 
to have been compiled in the reign of Henry VI., 
and afterwards continued to the death of Edward 
IV. Another *, derived from much the same 
materials as far as the reign of Richard II., appears 
to have been the work of William Gregory, skinner, 
who was made lord mayor in 145 1, the year after 
Jack Cade's rebellion ; but it was continued by 
another hand, at least half way through the reign 
of Edward IV., and the only known manuscript 
of it which we possess, ends abruptly in 1469, in the 
middle of a sentence, some leaves being lost. Both 
the part written by Gregory and the continuation 
are very interesting. We may give as a specimen 
of the former, a brief extract from the account of 
Cade's insurrection, of which the writer must have 
been an eye-witness ; reducing it as far as possible 
to modern spelling, for the sake of clearness : — 

"And upon the morrow he came with a great host into 
Southwark, and at the White Hart he took his lodging. 
And upon the morrow, that was the Friday, against even, 
they smote asunder the ropes of the drawbridge and fought 
sore and manly, and many a man was murdered and killed 
in that conflict, I wot not what to name it for the multitude 
of riff-raff. And then they entered into the city of London 
as men that had been half beside their wits ; and in that 
fury-ness they went, as they said, for the common weal of the 
realm of England, even straight into a merchant's place 
y-named Philip Malpas. of London. If it were true as they 

* Edited by myself for the Camden Society, in a volume entitled 
The Historical Collections of a London Citizen. 



Sontion ©Ijronicfeg. 289 



surmised after their doing I remit me to ink and paper. — 
Dens scit, et ego non. But well I wot that every ill beginning 
most commonly hath an ill ending, and every good beginning 
hath very good ending (Proverbium : — Felix firincipium 
finem facit esse beatuni). And that Philip Malpas was 
alderman, and thev spoiled him, and bare away much good of 
his, and in special much money, both of silver and gold, the 
value of a notable sum, and in special of merchandise, as of tin, 
wood, madder, and alum, with great quantity of woollen cloth 
and many rich jewels, with other notable stuff of feather beds, 
bedding, napery, and many a rich cloth of arras to the value 
of a notable sum — Nescio, sed Deus omnia scit. And in the 
evening they went with their simple captain to his lodgings. 
But a certain (a few) of his simpler and rude many abode 
there all the night, weening to them that they had wit and 
wisdom for to have guided or put in guiding all England, all 
so soon as they had got the city of London by a mishap of 
cutting of two sorry cords that now be altered and made two 
strong chains of iron unto the drawbridge of London. But 
they had other men with them, as well of London as of their 
own party ; and by them of one part and of that other part 
they left nothing unsought, and they searched all that night. 

" And in the morn he came again, that sorry and simple 
and rebellious captain, with his many. That was Saturday ; 
and it was also St. Martin's Day, the dedication of St. Martin 
in the Vintry, the 4th day of July. And then divers guests 
were y-summoned at the Guildhall ; and there Robert Home, 
being alderman, was arrested and brought into Newgate. 
And that same day William Crowmer, squire and sheriff of 
Kent, was beheaded in the field without Aldgate, at the Mile's 
end, beside Clopton's place ; and another man, that was 
named John Bayle, was beheaded at the White Chapel. And 
the same day afternoon was beheaded in Cheap, afore the 
the Standard, Sir James Fynes, being at that time the lord 
Saye and great treasurer of England ; the which was brought 
out of the Tower of London unto the Guildhall, and there of 
divers treasons he was examined, of which he acknowledged 

ENG. U 



290 3EarIg ©ftrontcletg of lEnglatrt). 



the death of that notable and famous prince, the duke of 
Gloucester.* And then they brought him unto the Standard, 
in Cheap, and there he received his jewys (dues i) and his 
death. And so forth all the three heads that day smitten off 
were set upon the bridge of London, and the two other heads 
taken down that stood upon the London Bridge before." 

This is not the work of a cultivated author, but 
it is the writing of a man who has evidently him- 
self witnessed the scenes he describes, and writes 
from personal knowledge. Equally interesting, in 
some parts, is the work of the continuator, whose 
information is generally quite as good, though 
perhaps he is not quite so frequently an eye-witness. 
Take, for example, the following account of some 
of the less known passages in the life of Margaret 
of Anjou — her adventures after the defeat of her 
party at the battle of Northampton : — 

" And then, the queen hearing this, she voided unto Wales ; 
but she was met with beside the castle of Malpas ; and a 
servant of her own, that she had made both yeoman and 
gentleman, and after appointed for to be in office with her 
son, the prince, spoiled her and robbed her, and put her so 
in doubt of her life and son's life also. And then she came 
to the castle of Hardelowe (Harlech), in Wales ; and she 
had many great gifts and [was] greatly comforted, for she 
had need thereof, for she had a full easy many {i.e. a very 
small company) about her, the number of four persons. And 
most commonly she rode behind a young, poor gentleman 
of fourteen years' age ; his name was John Combe, y-born 
at Amesbury, in Wiltshire. And there hence she removed 
privily unto the Lord Jasper, lord and earl of Pembroke, 
for she durst not abide in no place that [was] open, but in 

* Popularly called "the good duke Humphrey." 



% Bristol Chronicle. 291 

private. The cause was that counterfeit tokens were sent 
unto her as though that they had come from her most 
dread lord, the king, Harry the Sixth ; but it was not of his 
sending, neither of [his] doing, but forged things. For 
they that brought the tokens were of the king's house, and 
some of the prince's house, and some of her own house, and 
bade her beware of the tokens, that she gave no credence 
thereto ; for at the king's departing fro Coventry toward 
the field of Northampton, he kissed her and blessed the 
prince, and commanded her that she should not come unto 
him till that [he] sent a special token unto her that no man 
knew but the king and she. For the lords would fain [have] 
had her unto London, for they knew well that all the 
workings that were done grew by her ; for she was more 
wittier than the king, and that appeareth by his deeds, etc." 

Of city chronicles like these there seem to have 
been several, both in London and elsewhere, to- 
wards the end of the fifteenth century. Bristol, 
we know, had its chronicle, called the Mayor of 
Bristol's Kalendar* compiled in the same form 
as London Chronicles by Robert Ricart, town clerk 
of Bristol, in the reign of Edward IV. This work 
was continued by other hands, even to the reign of 
James I., and desultory entries added as late as the 
close of the seventeenth century. Almost ail of 
these chronicles, however, are mere dry records of 
events under the several years, seldom containing 
anything so interesting as the two extracts we 
have quoted from Gregory. And so long as the 
city chronicle adhered to the old form of annals 
little more was to be expected from it. Although 
the city had become in the course of centuries 

* Edited by Miss Toulmin Smith for the Camden Society. 



292 lEarlg ©Jjtontckrg of icnojant). 

more and more of a political centre, although the 
spread of education had lessened the disparity in 
literary power between monk and layman — yet 
the decline in the old monastic history was certainly 
not compensated by an equal gain in the civic 
chronicle till the Middle Ages had fairly passed 
away. One work of the kind, however, towards the 
close of this period, is of wider scope and of some- 
what greater literary pretensions than its fellows. 

Robert Fabyan, alderman of London, a member 
of the Drapers' company conceived a grander 
design than a mere collection of city annals. His 
object was to compose what he called a Concorda7tce 
of Histories, which, though mainly devoted to the 
affairs of England, had sections entirely occupied 
with those of France. The work begins with the 
arrival of Brutus, and is divided into seven parts ; 
but the first four parts are exceedingly brief, and 
even the fifth, which is longer, only comes down 
to Cadwallader, and the sixth to the Battle of 
Hastings ; so that the whole history of England 
and of other countries from William the Con- 
queror to the days of the Tudors is contained in 
the seventh part. It was an elaborate work, com- 
piled with very great care, from a great variety 
of authors, both English and French. Original 
verses also were inserted in various places, many 
of them being merely addressed to the Virgin at 
the beginning or end of a part, but some, like 
the complaint of King Edward II., having real 
reference to the history. No one, however, will 



ifaftgan'g ©Jjtontcle. 293 

greatly" commend these as poetry. But in the 
main he based the part of his narrative devoted 
to English history upon city annals of an earlier 
date like those of Gregory, and preserved the 
same form, heading the record of each year with 
the names of the mayor and sheriffs of that year. 

Of the personal history of Fabyan very little is 
known, but it is believed he was of a good Essex 
family, though he himself is said to have been born 
in London. He was made sheriff of London in 
1493, and three years later was appointed one of 
a deputation from the city to petition the king 
for redress of certain new impositions levied on 
English cloth in the Low Countries. In 1497 he 
was one of those commissioned to keep the city 
gates in case the Cornish rebels should march on 
London. In 1502 he resigned his alderman's gown 
on the pretext of poverty, though he seems to 
have been in very good circumstances, to avoid 
taking upon himself the office of mayor. He died 
on the 28th February, 15 13, and his will was proved 
in July following. 

His chronicle was named by himself The Con- 
cordance of Histories, but was first printed by 
Pynson, in 15 16, with the title The New Chronicles 
of England and France. This first edition is very 
rare. Many copies, it is said, were burnt by 
Cardinal Wolsey's order as reflecting on the ex- 
cessive wealth of the clergy ; but the statement 
is not very well attested. This edition brings 
down the English history to the battle of Bosworth 



294 lEarlg ©Jrontderg of lEnglanti. 

in 1485, and the French to the year 1495, with a 
notice of the death of Henry VII. in 1509 upon 
a separate leaf. A second edition, printed by 
Rastell, in 1533, contains the whole reign of 
Henry VII., which there is some reason to believe, 
notwithstanding its former omission, is by Fabyan 
himself. But later editions contained continuations 
by other hands into the reigns of Henry VIII. and 
Queen Elizabeth. 

Still, the city chronicle had not yet attained any 
high degree of literary merit ; nor, indeed, did it 
ever do so while it retained the form of a city 
chronicle at all. But within a few months after 
Fabyan's death the great Sir Thomas More, then 
under-sheriff of London, wrote in Latin and in 
English a brief history of Richard III.* which, 
though he left it, after all, a mere unfinished frag- 
ment, was adopted and incorporated with their 
works by all succeeding chroniclers for more than 
a hundred years, as the only adequate account 
of that extraordinary usurper. This is, indeed, 
the fountain-head of a great deal of our informa- 
tion, not exactly about the reign of Richard III., 
for it is carried little further than his coronation 

* It is said to have been written in the year 15 13, when More was 
under-sheriff of London. If the statement means that it was 
completed in that year, we must understand it according to the old 
computation by which the year 15 13 ended on the 24th March of 
what we should call the year 15 14. For in the beginning of the 
work More speaks of Thomas, Lord Howard, as "afterwards earl of 
Surrey," who was so created on the 1st February, 1514, for his 
services at Flodden Field. 



fttamf* Mtc&arti III. 295 

and the murder of the princes, but about the 
manner in which he paved his way to the throne. 
The story is told with consummate art, and it 
must certainly have been owing either to great 
indifference to his own literary reputation or to the 
pressure of occupations of a different nature that 
the author never completed a work of such remark- 
able merit. 

That More's account of this monster in human 
shape is somewhat highly coloured, might be 
admitted without prejudice to the literary character 
of the work. The very characteristics which, in 
one point of view, are a proof of genius, may some- 
times detract from the character of an author as 
a judicious and impartial historian. And it must 
be acknowledged that not only does More's History 
contain statements here and there which are not 
severely accurate, but his exaggerations are 
occasionally tinged with the superstition of the 
age to an extent we should hardly have expected 
in a man of so much wisdom. This will be apparent 
in the passage we are about to quote, containing 
a personal portrait of Richard himself. Yet it 
may be observed, that while the calm judicial mind 
seeks always to estimate each statement at its 
proper value, the narrative of a true historian ought 
undoubtedly to reflect the follies and superstitions 
of the time quite as much as the mature judgment 
of the author. Nay, these things are even more 
important, it may be said, than an absolutely 
correct view of the facts. More's History of 



296 lEarlg ©Jiromckrs of UnglanD. 

Richard III. is, from this point of view, all the 
more perfect a work of art because it contains 
stories of omens and suggestions of monstrous 
physical combinations not altogether discredited 
by the author himself, besides imputations of 
witchcraft put into the mouth of the leading 
personage at the council table. It is in these 
touches more than anywhere else that we discern 
symptoms of the intellectual and moral degradation 
of an age of civil war, usurpation, and anarchy. 

The following is More's picture of the usurper. 
After a notice of the duke of York his father, and 
of his two elder brothers Edward IV. and the 
duke of Clarence, the writer goes on to say — 

" Richard, the third son, of whom we now entreat, was in 
wit and courage equal with either of them ; in body and 
prowess, far under them both ; little of stature, ill-featured of 
limbs, crook-backed, his left shoulder much higher than 
his right, hard favoured of visage, and such as is in states * 
called warly, in other men otherwise. He was malicious, 
wrathful, envious, and from before his birth ever froward. 
It is for truth reported that the duchess, his mother, had 
so much ado in her travail that she could not be delivered 
of him uncut ; and that he came into the world with 
the feet forward, as men be borne outward, and (as the 
fame runneth) also not untoothed ; whether men, of hatred, 
report above the truth, or else that nature changed her 
course in his beginning, who in the course of his life many 
things unnaturally committed. None evil captain was he 
in the war, as to which his disposition was more metely 
than for peace. Sundry victories had he, and sometimes 
overthrows, but never in default of his own person, either of 
hardiness or of politic order. Free was he called of dispence, 

* Men of high position. 



iHfow'ss KtcfcarD Itt 297 

and somewhat above his power liberal ; with large gifts he 
gat him unsteadfast friendship, for which he was fain to pill 
and spoil in other places, and get him steadfast hatred. He 
was close and secret, a deep dissembler, lowly of countenance, 
arrogant of heart, outwardly companionable where he in- 
wardly hated, not letting to kiss whom he thought to kill ; 
dispiteous and cruel, not for evil will alway, but after (? ofter) 
for ambition, and either for the surety or increase of his 
estate. Friend and foe was muchwhat indifferent where his 
advantage grew ; he spared no man's death whose life with- 
stood his purpose." 

Such vigorous writing as this naturally gave a 
new turn to history. The figure of Richard III., 
in all its moral and physical deformity, was from 
that time indelibly stamped upon literature ; and 
so were its dark surroundings of legend, witchcraft, 
and superstition. No other picture of the man, no 
other account of his extraordinary usurpation, was 
known to the reading public. Shakespeare himself 
could do no more than dramatise what More had 
depicted so vividly in words. And how entirely 
Shakespeare followed the guidance of Sir Thomas 
is evident on the most cursory perusal of the 
history and the play. Perhaps the best example of 
this will be found in the celebrated scene in council 
at the Tower, in which the Protector orders Hastings 
to be beheaded. Here in the history we have the 
very same scene in all its details. The lords are 
first assembled in council, " devising the honour- 
able solemnity of the king's coronation." The 
Protector comes in among them about nine o'clock, 
" excusing himself that he had been from them so 



298 laarlg ©Jjtcmiclfrg of lEnglanfc. 

long, saying merrily that he had been asleep that 
day." He compliments the Bishop of Ely on his 
fine strawberries at Holborn, and requests him to 
send for some. He then gets the lords into con- 
versation with each other, and praying them to 
spare him for a little while, leaves the council. He 
returns with an altered countenance, knitting his 
brows and biting his lips. He asks "what were 
they worthy to have that compass the destruction of 
me, being so near of blood unto the king ? " He is 
answered by Hastings, " who, for the love between 
them, thought he might be boldest with him." He 
shows his withered arm, imputing its condition to 
witchcraft practised by the queen and Jane Shore. 
Hastings answers with an "if," as in the play, and 
the catastrophe follows. 

Moreover, after recording the execution of Hast- 
ings, More goes on to moralize on some tokens of 
his coming fate, by which he might have taken 
warning ; and the dramatist puts into the mouth of 
Hastings himself a last utterance regretting that he 
had not taken note of them. Lord Stanley had 
dreamed about a boar that had attacked them both 
till the blood ran about their shoulders — a signifi- 
cant dream, for the boar was King Richard's cog- 
nizance. Hastings himself, too, had been rallied 
by a knight on conversing with a priest that morn- 
ing on his way to the Tower, the knight saying with 
a jest, "you have no need of a priest yet," as if to 
intimate " you shall have soon." Yet at the Tower 
wharf he met with a pursuivant to whom he 



JWow** &tcijarti HI. 299 

enigmatically boasted of a triumph he was soon to 
have over his enemies of the queen's kindred when 
the axe hung over his own head. All these 
incidents, recounted by More at considerable length, 
are condensed by Shakespeare into a few lines. 

The history of Richard III. was first published 
in the year 1543, not as a separate work, but as 
part of a prose continuation to the rhyming 
chronicle of Harding, by Richard Grafton, an 
industrious printer and collecter of chronicles in the 
reign of Henry VIII. Grafton afterwards printed 
it again in his publication of what is commonly 
called Hall's Chronicle, and again in a chronicle 
known by his own name. But although the debt 
of the compiler to Sir Thomas More was acknow- 
ledged in each of these cases by marginal notes, 
the language was a good deal altered in parts, and 
the genuine text was only printed for the first time 
with More's other English works in 1557. We 
must now, however, part company with this in- 
teresting little fragment, and speak of the works 
with which it was incorporated. 

Hardyng's Chronicle is little more than a literary 
curiosity. The author, John Hardyng, was a north 
countryman of good family, who was brought .up 
in the household of Harry Percy, the celebrated 
Hotspur, and was with him at the battle of Shrews- 
bury, when he fell in fighting against Henry IV. 
He afterwards received a pardon for his share in 
the rebellion, took service under Sir Robert Umfra- 
ville, and was made constable ofWarkworth Castle, 



300 lEarlg Chroniclers cf lEnglantJ. 

in Northumberland. He took part in the Agin- 
court campaign of Henry V., and was sent on a 
secret mission into Scotland, which was attended 
with considerable danger. He came back maimed, 
and composed in limping stanzas a rhyming 
chronicle of English history, which appears to have 
been written during the minority of Henry VI. 
Many years afterwards he re-wrote it for Richard, 
duke of York, the father of Edward IV., and just 
after the accession of that king, he presented it to 
Edward himself. The account he gives of the 
Agincourt campaign is of some interest, but on the 
whole the work is of little historical value and still 
less poetical merit. 

Of far greater importance is the chronicle of 
Edward Hall, a citizen of London in the reign of 
Henry VIII. The son of a Shropshire gentleman, 
he himself was born in London, and was sent for 
his education first to Eton, then to Cambridge, and 
afterwards, some say, to Oxford. He then entered 
at Gray's Inn, was called to the bar, became one of 
the common Serjeants, and afterwards one of the 
under-sheriffs of the city. In 1533, he was ap- 
pointed summer reader of Gray's Inn, and in 1540, 
double reader in Lent, and one of the judges of the 
sheriff's court. He died in 1547, the year of 
Henry VIII.'s death. Next year his work was 
printed by Grafton from the manuscript he had 
left behind him, with a title which described its 
objects and scope very completely. It was as 
follows : — 



?i?air:3 ©fironicle. 301 



" The union of the two noble and illustre families of 
Lancaster and York, being long in continual dissension for 
the crown of this noble realm ; with all the acts done in 
both the times of the princes, both of the one lineage and 
of the other, beginning at the time of King Henry the 
Fourth, the first author of this division, and so successively 
proceeding to the reign of the high and prudent prince, King 
Henry the Eighth, the indubitate flower and very heir of both 
the said lineages." 

From these words we can very well appreciate 
the feeling to which the work owed its origin. To 
men of peaceful disposition in the reign of Henry 
VIII., it was a matter of profound satisfaction 
that their country had at length been emancipated 
from the bitterness of a century of internal strife 
and turmoil. The stories repeated from father 
to son during all that period of the days in which 
they lived must have had a mournful fascination, — 
days of intermittent rebellion, of sudden revolu- 
lution, of government paralysed at times by 
popular insurrection. No time was ever more full 
of stirring incident, pleasing to recall when once 
the danger was past, but suggestive of anxiety to 
every one so long as the old cause of trouble 
remained unabated. After so much stormy weather 
men were glad of the comparative dulness of the 
reign of Henry VII., with the promise of peace 
implied in his marriage ; and when that promise 
was fulfilled by the accession of his son, he was 
welcomed with a single-minded loyalty such as 
no English sovereign had before experienced, and 
few have experienced since. He was, besides, a 



3^2 lEarlg ®f)totadtx$ of lEttgiartf). 

king of many captivating qualities, which, together 
with the blessing of an undisputed succession 
rendered him the idol of the multitude, and dis- 
posed even good men to shut their eyes, as far as 
possible, to his vices. 

It was certainly so with Edward Hall. Lawyers, 
perhaps, more than any other class of the com- 
munity, were anxious to preach the duty of loyal 
obedience to a sovereign whose hereditary right 
was clear, and who, with all his faults, invariably 
paid great deference to the forms of the constitu- 
tion. Even if he unjustly put away his wife, it 
was by a legal process ; and if he abolished that 
papal jurisdiction to which men had been accus- 
tomed to appeal from time immemorial as a 
supreme tribunal in spiritual matters, in that, too, 
he had plausible reasons for pretending, at least, 
that the court was not impartial, and that the 
unbiassed opinions of learned men throughout 
Christendom favoured a demand which the Roman 
pontiff evaded rather than refused. So carefully 
did Henry consider the law in all he did that he 
bound the whole body of the lawyers of England 
to his side as special pleaders — all but the great 
and good Sir Thomas More ; nor would even he 
have uttered a word in dissent if he might have 
been allowed to hold his peace. To the rest sup- 
port of the king's acts and authority in all things 
seemed only a religious and loyal duty. 

Hence arose the somewhat excessive vehemence 
of Hall's Protestantism, his far too devoted vindi- 



P?alPg ©frronule. 303 



cation of Henry VIII.'s proceedings, and his painful 
want of sympathy with martyrs who suffered for 
conscience' sake. Nevertheless, as a contemporary 
account of events in the reign of Henry VIII., his 
chronicle is in every other respect most admirable. 
In it we often meet with descriptions most minute 
and graphic, especially of pageants and processions, 
which occupied a prominent place in the beginning 
of the reign. Here, too, we have the only original 
account of the rising of the 'prentices against aliens 
on Evil May-day ; of the conferences of Cardinal 
Wolsey with the mayor and aldermen of London 
to raise money for the king, and of many other 
things which, it is clear, are described by an eye- 
witness. As to the antecedent history from the 
days of Henry IV., it is carefully compiled from 
the best available authorities, English, French, and 
German. The style is clear and vigorous. The 
narrative never halts, but is highly readable 
throughout. To the modern reader there may 
seem a slight redundance of words, with Latinisms 
which have long grown out of date ; and now and 
then the language is a trifle pompous, as in the 
opening sentences, in which the author sets forth 
the object of his work : — 

" What mischief hath insurged in realms by intestine 
division — what depopulation hath ensued in countries by 
civil dissension — what detestable murder hath been com- 
mitted in cities by separate factions — and what calamity hath 
ensued in famous regions by domestical discord and un- 
natural controversy — Rome hath felt, Italy can testify, France 



304 3Earl5 ©fjromclerg of Hsnglanti, 

can bear witness, Beame (Bohemia) can tell, Scotland may- 
write, Denmark can show, and especially this noble realm of 
England can apparently declare and make demonstration." 

But we must remember that the capacities of 
the English language as a literary medium had as 
yet been very imperfectly developed. Writing 
like this was an imitation of classic oratory in 
which the powers of our vernacular tongue were 
put to an early trial. It was certainly, in its day, 
a wonderful example of what might be done in 
English prose ; nor can we refuse to accord it a 
certain meed of admiration even now. There has 
certainly been much pompous English since Hall's 
day without half so much weight of matter. 

It is not unlikely that Hall was animated to the 
task of writing his chronicle by the work of an 
Italian named Polydore Vergil, then living in 
England, who had composed in very polished Latin 
a complete history of the country from the earliest 
times to the death of Henry VII. Throughout the 
whole course of Hall's narrative occur passages 
which are simply translated from Polydore, espe- 
cially during the reign of Henry VII., in which the 
one work is little more than an English version of 
the other. Polydore's history was, in fact, a work 
that could not but have made a marked impression 
upon the literary world of that day. It was the 
first fruit of the revival of letters in the field of 
English history ; and the clearness of the narrative' 
and classic elegance of the diction were alone suffi-. 
cient to recommend it to every scholar. But it 



^otgDorc Etegtl. 305 



was also a work of really great research. Origin- 
ally undertaken at the request of Henry VII., the 
author had devoted very many years to its compo- 
sition, and it was finally dedicated to Henry VIII. 
in I533- What was more, it exhibited English 
affairs from quite a new point of view — that of the 
intelligent and clear-judging foreigner. To the 
dismay of English antiquaries, Polydore not only 
reproduced William of Newburgh's strong judgment 
as to the absurdity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's 
history, and the mythical character of Brutus, 
but backed it up by other arguments of his own 
from the silence of classical authors and the revela- 
tions of Gildas as to the non-existence in his day 
of any native memorials of the past history of the 
island ; so that the argument really might have 
seemed absolute and conclusive. Nor was this the 
only evidence he gave of a vigour of thought and 
independence of judgment to which the reader of 
chronicles had for some time been unaccustomed ; 
but throughout the whole narrative it was apparent 
that he had not only studied all the available 
original evidences, but that he had duly weighed 
their value, and formed his own conclusions. 

His history, however, was most valuable in the 
latter portion, in which he treated of the events of 
his own day, and especially of the affairs of Eng- 
land since he himself had known the country and 
lived in it. His account of the reign of Henry 
VII. is the fullest original narrative of the period 
that we possess ; and so little could the native 

ENG. X 



5o6 liarlj! Chroniclers of lEnglantJ. 

historian add to its details that Hall, as we have 
said, in this portion of his chronicle, was content 
merely to translate it into English without inter- 
polating almost a single word of his own or of 
matter from any other source. 

Polydore Vergil, in fact, was the only contem- 
porary writer who can be said to have given us 
anything like an adequate history of the reign of 
Henry VII. at all. That such a task should have 
been left to a foreigner is remarkable enough ; but 
the fact is not altogether unaccountable. Not 
only had the art of writing history in any form 
ceased to be cultivated as in former days, but the 
change of times on the accession of the Tudor 
dynasty must have been a great discouragement 
to those who would otherwise have undertaken it. 
The latest of monastic histories — the Chronicle of 
Croyland — ends at the accession of Henry VII. with 
some lame excuses for not continuing further a 
record of the acts of living men ; but no such 
scruples seemed to have troubled former chroniclers 
or even the same writer in the earlier part of his 
narrative. There v/as certainly something in the 
new condition of things that produced a feeling 
of constraint ; and the dull intellects of native 
writers, accustomed only to record external events, 
which the contentions of feudal nobles and rival 
dynasties had produced in unwelcome abundance, 
could not be expected to penetrate the veil of 
subtle statesmanship, by which a politic and peace- 
ful, but watchful and suspicious king, was putting 



^olgtiore Vettfl. 307 



an end to the long reign of violence. It required 
the brain of an Italian to gather the acts of such 
a reign into a regular narrative, and make their 
real significance apparent. 

Polydore Vergil was a native of the duchy of 
Urbino. He had been sent to England by the 
Pope as sub-collector of Peter's Pence under 
another Italian, Cardinal Hadrian de Castello, in 
or shortly before the year 1 503. He was in holy 
orders, and made himself so acceptable in the 
country to which he was sent, that he resolved 
to make it his home. He was appointed Arch- 
deacon of Wells, and had other English benefices 
also conferred on him. Besides English history 
he had written treatises on prodigies, proverbs, 
inventions, and on moral and theological subjects. 
He was a friend of the great scholar Erasmus, 
whom he frequently saw in England, though their 
friendship seems to have begun in a little soreness 
on his part, owing to a nearly simultaneous pub- 
lication by each of a work on Proverbs, in which 
he at first suspected plagiary. But it must be 
owned that, except in a literary point of view, his 
character does not stand high. In the beginning 
of Henry VIII. 's reign he incurred the displeasure 
of Cardinal Wolsey, lost his office of sub-collector, 
and was thrown into the Tower for some libellous 
insinuations that he had written in letters to Rome. 
From his place of confinement he wrote to the 
great cardinal, entreating his mercy in terms the 
most abject, and blasphemously besought an op- 



^arlg €f)ronickr$$ of lEnglanD. 



portunity of paying him adoration "as his God 
and Saviour." At the Pope's intercession he was 
liberated ; but long after Wolsey's death, when 
composing an additional book to his history re- 
lating to the reign of Henry VI II., he again 
poured out the venom he had so long suppressed, 
and assailed the great cardinal's memory with 
every possible slander. 

Richard Grafton, after he had printed Hall's 
Chronicle in 1548, composed an Abridgement of the 
Chronicles of England, which was printed by Tottyl 
in 1562, and republished two or three times during 
the next few years. But in this sort of work he 
had a formidable rival in the famous antiquary 
Stow, who, in 1 565, brought out his Summary of 
English Chronicles ; and in the spirit of rivalry he 
immediately issued an abridgement of his own. 
abridgement, entitled, A Manual of the Chronicles 
of England. This book he dedicated "to the 
Master and Wardens of the company of the most 
excellent art and science of Imprinting," hoping, 
as he avows, that by their patronage it would 
become the standard work upon the subject, and 
that they would take such order "that there be 
no brief abridgment or manuals of chronicles here- 
after imprinted but only this little book." Grafton's 
mind was not a very generous one, and in one edition 
he sneers at the work of his rival as containing 
" the memories of superstitious foundations, fables, 
and lies foolishly Stowed together." Nor, it must 
be owned, did Stow bear these attacks with perfect 



(Grafton's ©Ijrontcle. 309 

equanimity, but retaliated with charges against 
Grafton, one of which — that of falsifying Hardyng's 
Chronicle — appears to have been founded in igno- 
rance that Hardyng himself had re-written and 
altered his work. 

- But that which is called Graf toil s Chronicle did 
not appear till the year 1569.* His motive for 
compiling it is explained by himself, in the dedi- 
cation to Sir William Cecil. Although many 
writers had produced works of a kindred nature, 
no one had yet, in his opinion, published " any full, 
playne, and meere Englishe historic" Some were 
only short annals called abridgments, which showed 
what was done, but not the manner of doing it. 
Others mingled foreign affairs with English, to a 
needless extent. Others, especially by foreigners, 
had followed unjust and malicious reports in the 
matter of religion. For Grafton, like Hall, was a 
very zealous Protestant, and did not think that the 
history of his country had been written from a 
sufficiently Protestant point of view. He had been 
imprisoned in Henry VIU's time, for printing the 
Bible, and he had suffered a second imprisonment 
under Mary. He had been the king's printer under 
Edward VI., and lost his office after that king's 
death, for having printed a proclamation of Lady 
Jane Grey, as queen. His work, however, was so 
far from being " meere Englishe historie," that it 
began in the old style with Creation, and the story 

* The second volume, which seems to have been completed before 
the first, bears date 1568. 



310 lEarlg ©fjrontdcrg of lEnglant). 

of Adam and Eve. The reason for this, as he 
informs the reader, was because this island had the 
same time of creation as all the rest of the earth. 
The first vclume comes down in seven ages, or 
parts, to the time of William the Conqueror. And 
in this first volume even Brutus does not make his 
appearance earlier than the fourth age, in which he 
is contemporary with the kings of Israel. The 
first volume, however, is of comparatively slender 
dimensions. The second is about eight times its 
bulk, and its contents are, indeed, much more like 
" meere Englishe historic" They are compiled from 
various sources, but from the accession of Henry 
IV. the work is little more than a reprint of Hall's 
Chronicle, almost word for word, with a continuation, 
to the beginniug of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 
On the whole, though highly esteemed in its own 
day, it is not a work of very great Vcdue to the 
modern student of history. 

The antiquary, John Stow, was born in London, 
in the parish of St. Michael, Cornhili, in the year 
1525. Ke was eleven years old when Henry VIII. 
began to suppress the monasteries ; and there is 
little doubt that he was much impressed by the 
change which then came over tne world. " It was," 
he says, speaking of the religious houses, in his 
chronicle, "a pitiful thing to hear the lamentation 
that the people in the country made for them ; for 
there was great hospitality kept among them, and, 
as it was thought, more than ten thousand persons, 
masters and servants, had lost their livings by the 



jotofo'jj ©jjronlcfe. 311 



putting down of those houses at that time." Never- 
theless, he is neither a zealous advocate of the 
Reformation, like Hall and Grafton, nor a believer 
in the Pope's authority, but records everything that 
took place in a very impartial manner. He was 
doubtless a studious antiquary from a very early 
period. His father was a member of the Merchant 
Tailors' company, and he himself is designated a 
tailor in contemporary documents. But about his 
fortieth year he gave up his business, and devoted 
himself entirely to the study of antiquities. He 
produced a summary of English history, which was 
published in 1565, and went through numerous 
editions. But a much more important work was 
his annals, now commonly spoken of as Stows 
Chronicle, which first appeared in 1580, and was 
afterwards considerably enlarged. Two editions of 
it were published after his death by Edmund 
Howes, the latter of which, bringing down the 
history to the year of publication, 163 1, is that most 
commonly referred to. 

The industry of Stow was indefatigable. Besides 
the chronicle, or annals, and the summary above 
mentioned, he was the author of a very elaborate 
topographical work, entitled A Survey of the Cities of 
London mid Westminster. He also left behind him a 
vast quantity of manuscript notes and copies from 
old chronicles in his own hand. He died in 1605, 
two years after the accession of James I., and, it is 
melancholy to record, in extreme poverty. After 
devoting a long life to the investigation of historical 



3i2 Hiarls ©fwomclettf of lEnglanfc. 

truth, he found himself, in his eightieth year, 
absolutely reduced to beg his bread. He received 
letters patent from King James, acknowledging the 
great services he had done at his own great cost, and 
with neglect of ordinary means of maintenance, in 
the publication of "divers necessary books and 
chronicles ; " on which account he was authorised 
to solicit voluntary contributions for his support, 
the king setting the example. Such was the 
reward of his long untiring zeal, and single-minded 
devotion to historic truth ! 

The remarkable industry shown by so many 
different workers at this period in the compilation 
of chronicles, was undoubtedly due in great part to 
the dissolution of the monasteries in the reign of 
Henry VIII. The ancient storehouses of literature 
were now destroyed ; their treasures, intellectual or 
other, had been carried off ; their ancient chronicles 
and richly illuminated manuscripts had been confis- 
cated like all their other goods. The records of the 
monks had thus become the property of the Crown, 
hereafter to be studied and utilized in the city, not 
in the country. And though some could not but 
lament the disturbance, the change was eminently 
beneficial and suited to the character of the new era, 
days when learning no longer withdrew itself to the 
cloister, but frequented the courts of princes and 
invigorated the life of cities. 

But even before the suppression of the monas- 
teries, a considerable amount of interest seems to 
have been felt regarding their historical manuscripts. 



&clanVi3 ©olkctfoitjS. 313 

Henry VIII. had commissioned his librarian, John 
Leland, who was designated the king's antiquary, 
to travel up and down the country and draw up a 
topographical account of the whole kingdom and 
its antiquities. Under this commission, Leland 
was empowered to examine the libraries of cathe- 
drals, monasteries, and colleges, and to report upon 
their contents. He spent six years in the work, 
and the information he collected was very valuable. 
Besides a great mass of curious notes upon the 
different localities, he described particularly all the 
more remarkable manuscripts he met with in the 
monasteries. His collections, however, remained 
unprinted till the beginning of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, when some of them were edited by the anti- 
quary, Thomas Hearne. They had, in fact, rather 
an unfortunate history. Edward VI. committed 
them to the keeping of Sir John Cheke, who find- 
ing himself obliged to leave the country in Mary's 
reign, gave some volumes to Humphrey Purefoy 
which are now in the Bodleian library. The rest 
came to the hands of Lord Paget and Sir William 
Cecil, secretaries of state ; but whether in their 
keeping or in Cheke's they were so sadly neglected 
as even for some time to be exposed to the 
weather. 

Early in the reign of Elizabeth, Reginald Wolfe, 
the queen's printer, by birth a German, had planned 
the publication of a very magnificent work, which 
was to contain a universal cosmography, with par- 
ticular histories of every known nation. He spent 



314 lEarlg @i)romclatf of lEnglatrti. 

five-and-twenty years in preparing for this grand 
project, but died before he could give it to the 
world. Raphael Holinshed whom he had engaged 
to collect the materials for it, was then applied to 
by his executors to see the work through the press. 
The bulk of it, however, alarmed those who were 
to bear the expense of publication, and it was 
resolved to limit the design in the first instance to 
the histories of England, Scotland, and Ireland 
with a general description of each country prefixed. 
Accordingly, in the year 1577, there appeared in 
two thick folio volumes, the first edition of the work 
called Holinshed 's Chronicle, containing the three 
histories and descriptions just mentioned, illustrated 
by numerous spirited woodcuts. This was three 
years before Stouts Chronicle was published. But 
the first edition of Holinshed's work is now very 
rare, and the second edition is that which is 
commonly referred to. This was published ten 
years later without woodcuts and with some omis- 
sions besides, but with important additions con- 
tributed by Stow and several others, who were 
among the best antiquarians of the time. 

Little is known of Raphael Holinshed, the 
principal author of this work, except that he be- 
longed to a Cheshire family, and that, according 
to Anthony a Wood, he was educated at one of 
the universities, and was a minister of God's word. 
He is also believed to have been, in later life, 
steward to Thomas Burdet, of Bromcote, in War- 
wickshire, an employment quite compatible with 



?I?oItn0f>rti'js ©SrcRttle. 315 

that of a clergyman in those days, though the 
point seems to have raised a difficulty with some 
critics. He died at Bromcote about three or four 
years after the first publication of his chronicle, 
the second edition of which was issued after his 
death. 

His chief assistant in the work was William 
Harrison, a native of London, who received his 
education first at Westminster School, under the 
celebrated divine, Alexander Nowell, and after- 
wards at Oxford and Cambridge. He was chaplain 
to William Brooke, Lord Cobham, warden of the 
Cinque Ports, who presented him to two livings 
in Essex, and to whom he dedicated his own part 
of Holinshed's publication, the Description of 
Britain and of England prefixed to the whole. 
This is a very elaborate account of its topography, 
inhabitants, languages, manners, laws, and insti- 
tutions, which, as he informs us, he composed 
at the request of his friends during one Trinity 
term when he was compelled to stay in London. 
The conditions under which he achieved the task 
would certainly appear to have been very unpro- 
pitious ; for, as he tells us, he was then parted 
from his books by a distance of forty miles, and 
so little had he travelled even in his own country, 
except in visits to the universities or to Lord 
Cobham, in Kent, he had never, till recently, gone 
a forty miles' journey in his life. Nevertheless, 
by careful study of the valuable manuscripts of 
Leland (though they had been sadly injured by 



31 6 lEarlg @§rottula:g of lEnglant). 

wet and weather, and several of the volumes were 
missing), and by information derived from letters 
and from personal conversation with friends, he 
succeeded in producing a treatise altogether unique 
in its day, and certainly of no small interest to 
students of antiquity in later times. 

John Hooker, otherwise called Vowell, of Exeter, 
uncle of "the Judicious Hooker," contributed the 
history of the conquest of Ireland translated from 
Giraldus Cambrensis, and some further articles 
relating to the affairs of that country. Holinshed 
himself, however, wrote the continuation of Irish 
history from where Giraldus left off, as far as the 
year 1509, to which, in the second edition, a 
further continuation to 1586 was added by Richard 
Stanihurst, a native of Dublin, who afterwards 
wrote a Latin history of the country, and a trans- 
lation of Virgil's JEneid into English hexameters. 

In the second edition also, the history of Scot- 
land, which Holinshed had brought down to 1571, 
was continued by Francis Botevile, alias Thin, 
Lancaster herald, a man of great learning and 
ability ; and a number of valuable notes throughout 
the whole work were contributed by Abraham 
Fleming, rector of St. Pancras, Soper Lane, in the 
city of London. 

In the second edition of Holinshed 1 s Chronicle 
several sheets were cancelled by order of the Privy 
Council, as containing objectionable matter in re- 
ference to certain delicate subjects in the reign of 
queen Elizabeth. But these castrations were in 



j&ftafogpmc'g i^igtomg. 317 

the last century collected and published by them- 
selves in black letter, similar to the original edition 
with which they are now often bound up. 

It was from the pages of Holinshed, and of his 
predecessor Hall, that Shakespeare derived the 
materials of his dramatized histories. And it may 
be remarked that, besides the play of King John, 
which stands by itself, those dramas form a regular 
sequence, covering exactly the same period as 
Hall's Chronicle— -from Richard II. to Henry VIII. 
— broken only by the dark mysterious interval of 
Henry VII.'s reign, which afforded no good sub- 
ject for representation on the stage. With this 
exception the whole period was full of action, and 
the wonderful pathos of its great catastrophes — 
a pathos which deeply touched the nation's heart, 
and is strongly marked in the narrative of Hall — 
was exemplified as it could have been by no other 
pen. Poets, indeed, had been labouring at the 
theme, even in the days of Queen Mary, and the 
Mirror for Magistrates, which first saw the light 
in the very beginning of Elizabeth's reign, bore 
testimony by its popularity to the depth and 
universality of the sentiment. It was the work of 
several hands, framed on the model of Lydgate'-s 
Falls of Princes ; and as edition after edition 
appeared throughout the whole reign of Elizabeth, 
the public seemed never tired of reading mono- 
logues put into the mouths of unfortunate great 
men who had come to a tragic end in the midst of 
their prosperity. But though the poetry was far 



3i 8 lEarlg <&f)foniclcYjE of iEnglanto. 

from being contemptible (Sackville, Lord Buck- 
hurst contributed some of his most polished verses), 
and though the subjects were taken from English 
history since the days of Richard II., such a mode 
of treatment could not compare for a moment with 
dramatic representations of the same facts by the 
hand of the great master. It is from the dramas 
of Shakespeare that most of us derive, even at this 
day, our chief impressions of English history ; and 
those dramas were undoubtedly composed from a 
very careful study of the writings of Hall and 
Holinshed. 

The Tudor era, with all its despotism, was on 
the whole a period of national prosperity and 
happiness. It contained, certainly, enough of the 
evils of past times — enough of cruelty, oppression, 
and wrong-doing, to impress men with awe and 
with lively sympathy for the victims of state 
tyranny. But, at- least, the wrong-doing was no 
longer capricious ; feudalism was at an end ; the 
country, from one extremity to the other, was 
under a single rule and government, no longer 
liable to be disturbed by the ascendancy of some 
new faction among a turbulent nobility. The im- 
provement was so great that men could look back 
upon the past with a sense of devout thankfulness ; 
they could collect its annals, moralize upon them, 
dramatize them. And in the altered conditions 
of literature, what they had to say was all the 
more significant of popular feeling. For though 
the monasteries were gone — those secure retreats 



literature ©entraKjeJj. 319 

in which the deeds of despotic kings had once 
been freely canvassed, both in speech and writing 
— their extinction only contributed still more to 
that unity of national life and sentiment which the 
extinction of feudalism had done so much to effect. 
The records of the monks were now centralized 
in the city ; the facts of history were discussed in 
a larger atmosphere. Local traditions and recorded 
incidents, known hitherto within narrower limits, 
had become the talk of men in streets and taverns. 
It was in London alone that men could gather all 
the knowledge that was to be obtained about the 
past. It was there that the contrast between new 
and old times was best understood, and the value 
of a stable government best appreciated. It was 
there, too, that literature was now domiciled ; the 
printing press had made ic dependent on commerce 
in a way it had never been before. And it was 
in the earliest period of its new career — in the 
days of the Tudors and the Stuarts — that litera- 
ture produced the most elaborate of English 
histories, and the most historically-minded of 
English poets. 



INDEX. 



A. 

Adam de Marisco, 228, 229. 

Adamnan, abbot of Iona, 21. 

Aetius the Consul, his assistance invoked by the Britons against the 

Picts and Scots, 5. 
Ailred of Rievaulx, 193. 
Albertus Magnus, 222. 
Alcuin, 192. 

Alexander of Hales, 225, 229. 
Alfred, King, Asser's Life of, 30-47. 
Ambrosius Aurelianus, the Roman general, aids the Britons against 

the Saxons, 8. 
Anglo-Saxon, or Saxon, Chronicle. See Saxon Chronicle. 
Anselm, Eadmer's account of him, 67-73. 
Antiquis Legibus, Liber de, 284. 
Aquinas, Thomas, 222. 

Arthur, King, stories of, in Geoffrey of Monmouth, 158. 
Asser, Bishop, facts relating to, 30, 31. His Life of Alfred, 30-47 ; 

incorporated in Florence of Worcester's Chronicle, 39, 64. 

Annals attributed to Asser, 34, 37, 38. 
Augustine, St., his mission to England, 10-17. 
Augustinian Canons, 118. 
Augustinian Friars, 220. 
Austin Canons. See Augustinian. 

ENG. V 



322 Intoex. 

B. 

Bacon, Roger, 229. 

Battle Abbey, founded by William the Conqueror, 51, 53. Chronicle 

of, 53-57- 
Bede, the Venerable. His Ecclesiastical History, 10-22, 28. His 

other works, 22, 23. Cuthbert's account of his death, 24-27. 

Miracles related by him, 28, 29. 
Benedict of Peterborough, 194. 
Bernard, St., 113-115. 
Black Friars, the, 202. 
Blaneforde, Henry de, 267. 
Bonaventura, 225, 226. 

Botevile, or Thin, Francis, his contribution to Holinshed, 3 1 6. 
Brakeland, Joceline of, his Chronicle, 142-154. 
Bristol chronicle, a (the Mayor of BristoFs Calendar), 291. 
Britain, Gildas on the Destruction of, 2-9. 
Britons, Groans of the, 6. 
Brute, Chronicles of the, 164, 283. 
Bury St. Edmund's (or St. Edmundsbury), monastery of. Account 

of the rule of Abbot Sampson there, 142-154. 



Cade's insurrection described by Gregory, 288-290. 

C^dmon, the poet, 21. 

Carmelite Friars, 220. 

Carthusian Order, 1 12, 113. 

Caxton, William, 283. 

Chester, St. Werburgh's, Higden, a monk of, 274, 

Cistercian Order, 1 13- 118. 

Cluniac Order, 112. 

Coventiy, monks replaced by secular canons at, 139-141. 

Croyland, Chronicle of, 273. 

Crusade, the first, described by William of Malmesbury, 83, 84. 

Cuthbert's account of the death of Bede, 24-27. 

D. 

Devizes, Richard of, his Chronicle, 119-141. 



InDex. 323 

Dominic, St., founds the Dominican Order, 201-204. 

Duns Scotus, 229, 230. 

Dunstan, St., reforms the monastic rule in the south of England, 

57- 
Durham, Simeon of, 192. 

E. 

Eadmer's history of his own time, 65-75. 

Eccleston's history of the arrival of the Franciscans in England, 

311-219. 
Edwin, king of Northumbria, his conversion to Christianity, 17-20. 
Etiwin I., Trivet's description of, 265-267. 

Ethelbert, king of Kent, receives St. Augustine in England, 12-14. 
Ethelstan, a priest invited to King Alfred's court, 42. 
Eusebius, 5. 

F. 

Fabyan, Robert, his Chronicle, 292-294. 
Fleming, Abraham, his contributions to Holinshed, 316. 
Florence of Worcester, 63. 

Francis, St., founds the Franciscan Order of Friars, 204-209. 
Eccleston's history of their arrival in England, 211-219. 



Geoffrey of Monmouth. See Monmouth, Geoffrey of. 

Gildas, doubts as to his age and nationality, 2. His book on the 

Destruction of Britain, 2- 9. 
Giraldus Cambrensis, 168-171. His birthplace, 171-173. His 

family, 173 ; life and works of, 174-19 1. 
Gloucester, Robert Earl of, son of Henry I. , 95 ; patron of William 

of Malmesbury, 87, 156; and of Geoffrey of Monmouth, 156- 

157. 
Grafton, Richard, his minor historical works, 308, 309 ; his 

Chronicle, 309, 310. 
Gregory, William, his Chronicle, 288-291. 
Gregory, St., Pope, sends St. Augustine into England, 10. 

Writes letters in his behalf, 11, 12. Story of his seeing British 

slaves at Rome, 15, 16. 



3 2 ; InDex. 

Grey Friars, the, 211. 

Grimbald, a monk invited by Alfred from Gaul, 42. 

Grosseteste, Bishop, 217. 

H. 

Hales, Alexander of, 225, 229. 

Hall's Chronicle, 299-304. 

Hardyngs Chronicle, 299, 300. 

Harrison, William, his Description of Britain, in Holinshed, 315. 

Hastings, battle of, its results described by William of Malmesbury, 

81-83. 
Hemingburgh, Walter, History of, 195, 196. 
Henry I. (Beauclerc), described by William of Malmesbury, 85, 86. 

His encouragement of learning, 155. 
Henry II., incident on his landing at St. David's, 179 ; personal 

description of, by Giraldus, 181-184. 
Hexham, John of, 193. 
Hexham, Richard of, 193. 
Higden, Ralph, his Polychronicon, 274-279. 
Hilda, St., founds the Abbey of Whitby, 20, 21, 57. 
Holinshed, Raphael, his Chronicle, 314-317. 
Holy rood, Chronicle of, 193. 

Hooker (or Vowell), John, his contributions to Holinshed, 316. 
Hoveden, Roger of, his History, 194. 
Huntingdon, Henry of, 98-100; personal account of, 101-103; his 

History of the English, 104, 105. 

J- 
Jews massacred at the coronation of Richard I., 122 ; supposed 

crucifixion of children by, 124. 
John, Prince, afterwards King, 176, 184 
John of Hexham, 193. 

K. 

Kilwardby, Robert, 

Knights Templars and Knights of St. John, 118. 



InUcx. 325 



Lanercost, Chronicle of, 196-198. 

Leland, John, his collections, 313. 

Liber de Antiquis Legibus, 284. 

Liber Albus of the City of London, 287. 

Lombard, Peter, 221. 

London, incorporation of the city, 139. Chronicles of, 285-291. 

Longchamp, William de, bishop of Ely, described by Richard of 

Devizes, 126. 
Lully, Raymond, 226,227. 

M. 

Malmesbury, William of, account of, 76 ; character as an historian, 
77, 78 ; his Gesta Regum, 79-86 ; his Historia Novella, 87, 88. 

Margaret of Anjou, her adventures described by Gregory, 290-291. 

Marianus Scotus, 64. 

Matthew Paris, 62, 6$, 236-239, 243-246 ; his History, 247-257. 

Maud, the Empress, 96 ; her escape from Oxford described, 97, 98. 

Melrose, Chronicle of, 195. 

Minorite Friars, 210, 211. 

Mirror for Magistrates, the, 317. 

Monasteries, decline of discipline in, under the Saxons, 57. 
Labours of the monks, agricultural, 58, 59 j literary, 59-61. 
Office of historiographer in monasteries, 62, 63. Reforms of 
St. Dunstan and Lanfranc, 1 10. New monastic orders, 1 10, 1 1 1. 
The Cluniacs, 112; Carthusians, 112,113 I Cistercians, 113-118. 

Monmouth, Geoffrey of, his History of the Kings of Britain, 156- 
168. 

Mount Badon, 8. 

N. 

Newburgh, William of, denounces the fictions of Geoffrey of Mon- 
mouth, 167; his History, 193,194. 

Nonant, Hugh de, bishop of Coventry, expels the monks and puts 
secular canons in their place, 139-141. 

Northern historians, 1 91-198. 



326 Bitex. 

o. 

Occam, William, 230-232, 280. 
Ordericus Vitalis, 106-108. 

Oswy, king of Northumbria, being victorious in battle, makes his 
daughter a nun, 20. 

r. 

Paris, Matthew, 62, 63, 236-239, 243-246 ; his History, 247-257. 
Paulinus, bishop of York, converts Edwin, king of Northumbria, to 

Christianity, 17, 19 ; his missionary efforts north and south ot 

Humber, 20. 
Peterborough, Benedict of, 194. 
Picts and Scots oppress the Britons, 5. 
Plegmund, invited to King Alfred's court, 42. 
Polychronicon, Higden's, 274-279. 
Polydore, Vergil. See Vergil, P. 
Preaching Friars, the, 202. 
Premonstratensian Canons, 118. 
Pusac, or Pudsey, Hugh de, bishop of Durham, story of, in Richard 

of Devizes, 127, 1 28. 



Richard I., massacre of the Jews at his coronation, 122. His 
expedition to the Holy Land, 125, 128-137, 141. 

Richard III., More's History of, 294-299. 

Richard of Devizes, Chronicle of, 119-141. 

Richard of Hexham, 193. 

Rishanger, William, Chronicles of, 257-264. 

Robert of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror, described by 
William of Malmesbury, 85 ; by Ordericus Vitalis, 106, 107. 

Robert Earl of Gloucester. See Gloucester, Robert Earl of. 

Roger of Wendover, his Flowers 0/ History, 239-243. 



St. Alban's, historical school of, 235-273 ; battle of, 273. 
St. Edmundsbury. See Bury St. Edmunds. 



Xntttx* 327 

St Jerome, 5. 

St. Mot, Life of, 37, 39. 

Sampson, abbot of Bury St. Edmund's, his rule over the monastery, 
142, 143 ; personal description of, 143-145 ; protects his juris- 
diction from interference by the archbishop, 146, 147 ; his journey 
to Rome before he was abbot, 147 ; establishes schools and 
hospitals, etc., 149; refuses a request of King Richard, 150; 
maintains the rights of his monastery against the city of 
London, 151, 152 ; and against the monks of Ely, 153, 154. 

Saxon, or Anglo-Saxon, Chronicle, the, 32, 34, 36, 49-53, 64, 65. 

Scots and Picts oppress the Britons, 5. 

Shakespeare's Historical Plays, 317, 318. 

Simeon of Durham, 192. 

Standard, battle of the, described by Henry of Huntingdon, I04J 
by Richard of Hexham, 193 ; by Ailred of Rievaulx, ib. 

Stanihurst, Richard, his contributions to Holinshed, 316. 

Stephen, King, History of, by William of Malmesbury, 87 ; by an 
anonymous writer, 88-98 ; by Henry of Huntingdon, 98, 104, 
105. 

Stow, John, 308, 310 ; his Chronicle, and other works, 311, 312. 

Stubbs, Dr. Thomas, his History of the Archbishops of York, 
224, 225. 

Sulpicius Severus, Ecclesiastical History of, 5. 



Thin, Francis. See Botevile. 

Thomas Aquinas, 222. 

Trevisa, John, translator of Higden's Polychronicon, 279-282. 

Trivet, Nicholas, his Annals, 223, 224, 265-267. 

Trokelowe, John de, 267. 

Tyler, "Wat, his rebellion, 270-272. 



V. 

Vergil, Polydore, his History of England, 304-308. 
Vowell, John. See Hooker. 



328 Iitfjex. 

w. 

Walsingham, Thomas, his English History, 267-272 ; his Ypodigma 

Neustrice, 268. 
Walter Hemingburgh, his History, 195, 196. 

Werefrith, bishop of Worcester, invited to King Alfred's court, 42. 
Werewulf, a priest, invited to King Alfred's court, 42. 
Whethamstede, John, Abbot of St. Alban's, his Register, 2"J2- 
Whitby Abbey founded by St. Hilda, 20, 21, 57 ; council held at, 

determines the rule of Easter in Britain, 21. 
William the Conqueror, description of, in the Saxon Chronicle, 

51-53- 
William II., his relations with Anselm described by Eadmer, 

67-73- 
William of Malmesbury. See Malmesbury, William of. 
William of Newburgh. See Newburgh, William of. 
Wolfe, Reginald, 313. 
Worcester, Florence of, 63. 
Wycliffe, 231, 270 ; favour shown to him at Oxford, 269. 




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ST. PAUL IN DAMASCUS AND ARABIA. By the Rev. Georgr 
Rawlinson, M.A., Canon of Canterbury. With Map. 

BT. PAUL IN ASIA MINOR AND AT THE SYRIAN ANTIOCH, 

By the late Rev. E. H. Plumptrb, D.D. With Map. 

ST. PAUL AT ROME. By the late Very Rev. C. Merivals, 
D.D., D.C.L., Dean of Ely. With Map. 

MANUALS OF ELEMENTARY SCIENCE. 

A oet of Elementary Manuals on the principal Branches of Science. 

Fcap. 8vo, limp cloth, is. each, 
ELECTRICITY. By the late Professor Fleeming Jenkim. 
PHYSIOLOGY. By A. Macalister, LL.D., M.D., F.R.S. 
GEOLOGY. By the Rev. T. G. Bonney, M.A., F.G.S. 
CRYSTALLOGRAPHY. By Henry Palin Gurney, M.A. 
ASTRONOMY. By W. H. M. Christie, M.A, F.R.S. 
BOTANY. By the late Professor Bentlbit. 
ZOOLOGY. By Alfred Newton, M.A., F.R.S 
HATTER AND MOTION. By J. Clerk Maxwell, M.A, 

SPECTROSCOPE AND ITS WORK, THE. By the late Richard 
A, Proctor, 



PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 3 

MANUALS OF HEALTH. 

A Set of Manuals for Household Use." 

Fcap. 8vo, limp cloth, price is. each. 

NOTES ON THE VENTILATION AND WABMING OF HOUSES, 
CHURCHES, SCHOOLS, AND 0THE3 BUILDINGS. By the 
late Ernest H. Jacob, M.A., M.D. (Oxon). 

ON PERSONAL CASE OF HEALTH. By the late E. A. Parkes, 
M.D., F.R.S. 

AIR, WATEB, AND DISINFECTANTS. By C. H. Aikman, 

M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S.E. 

HEALTH AND OCCUPATION. By the late Sir B. W. Richard- 
son, F.R.S. , M.D. 

THE HABITATION IN BELATION TO HEALTH. By F. & 
Francois de Chaumont, M.D., F.R.S, 



NATURAL HISTORY RAMBLES. 

Intended to cover the ■ Natural History of the British Isles in a 
manner suited to the requirements of visitors to the regions 
named. 

Fcap. Zvo, with numerous Woodcuts, cloth boards, 2S. 6d. 
each. 

IN SEABCH OF MINERALS. By the late D. T. Ansted, M.A. 

LAZES AND BIVEBS. By C. O. Groom Napier, F.G.S. 

LANE AND FIELD. By the late Rev. J. G. Wood, M.A. 

MOUNTAIN AND MOOB. By J. E. Taylor, Esq., F.L.S. 

PONDS AND DITCHES. By M. C. Cooke, M.A., LL.D. 

SEA-SHOBE (THE). By Professor P. Martin Duncan. 

UNDEBGBOUND. By J. E. Taylor, Esq., F.L.S. 

WOODLANDS (THE). By M. C. Cooke, M.A., LL.D. 



PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 



THE ROMANCE OF SCIENCE. 

A Series of Books which shows that Science has for the masses as 
great interest as, and more edification than, the romances of 
the day. 

Post 8vo, with numerous illustrations, cloth boards. 

COAL, AND WHAT WE GET FROM IT. By Professor R. 
Meldola, F.R.S., F.I.C. 2s. 6d. 

COLOUR MEASUREMENT AND MIXTURE. By Captain W. DB 
W. Abney, C.B., R.E., F.R.S. 2s. 6d. 

DISEASES OF PLANTS. By Professor Marshall Ward. 2j. 6d. 

OUR SECRET FRIENDS AND FOES. Third edition, revised 
and enlarged. By Percy Faraday Frankland, Ph.D., 
F.R.S. y. 

SOAP-BUBBLES, AND THE FORCES WHICH MOULD THEM. 
By C. V. Boys, A.R.S.M., F.R.S. zs. 6d. 

SPINNING-TOPS. By Professor J. Perry, M.E., F.R.S. 2s. 6d. 

TIME AND TIDE: a Romance of the Moon. Third Edition, 
revised. By Sir Robert S. Ball. 2s. 6d. 

THE MACHINERY OF THE UNIVERSE. Mechanical Con- 
ceptions of Physical Phenomena. By Professor A. E. 
Dolbear, A.B., A.M , M.E., Ph.D. 2J. 

THE MAKING OF FLOWERS. By the Rev. Professor G. 
Henslow, M.A., F.L.S., F.G.S. 2s. 6d. 

THE STORY OF A TINDER-BOX. By the late C. Meymott 
Tidy, M.B., M.S. zs. 

THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF WORLDS. A Lecture by the 
late Professor A. H. Green, M.A., F.R.S. is. 

THE SPLASH OF A DROP. By Professor A. M, Worthington, 
M.A., F.R.S. is. 6d. 



PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 



UNIFORM LIBRARY EDITION OF 
MRS. EWING'S WORKS. 

Crown Svo, halfcloth> 2S. 6d, eachj or complete in a case, 48s. 

Vol.1, contains — "Melchior's Dream," and other Tales, "The 
Blackbird's Nest," "A Bit of Green," " Friedrich's Ballad," 
" Monsieur the Viscount's Friend," etc. 

Vol.11, contains — "Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances," "Ida," 
"Mrs. Moss," "The Snoring Ghost," etc. 

Vol. III. contains—" Old-fashioned Fairy Tales." 

Vol. IV. contains — "A Flat Iron for a Farthing." 

Vol. V. contains— " The Brownies," "The Land of Lost Toys," 
" Three Christmas Trees," " An Idyll of the Wood," etc. 

Vol. VI. contains — " Six to Sixteen." A story for Girls. 

Vol. VII. contains — "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire," and other Tales, 
"Timothy's Shoes," " Benjy in Beastland," " So-So," etc. 

Vol. VIII. contains— " Jan of the Windmill." 

Vol. IX. contains — Verses for Children, Songs for Music, and 
Hymns. With numerous Illustrations. 

Vol. X. contains— " The Peace Egg," "A Christmas Mumming 
Play," " Snapdragons," " Old Father Christmas," etc. 

Vol. XI. contains — "A Great Emergency," and other Tales, "A 
very Ill-tempered Family," "Our Field," "Madam Liberality." 

Vol. XII. contains— " Brothers of Pity," and other Tales of Beasts 
and Men, "Father Hedge-hog and his Neighbours," "Toots 
and Boots," " The Hens of Hencastle," etc. 

Vol. XIII. contains— "We and the World," Part I. 
Vol. XIV. contains—" We and the World," Part II. 
VoL XV. contains — "Jackanapes," "Daddy Darwin's Dovecote," 
"The Story of a Short Life." 

Vol. XVI. contains — " Mary's Meadow," and other Tales of Fields 
and Flowers. 

Vol. XVII. contains — Miscellanea, including "The Mystery of the 
Bloody Hand," " Wonder Stories," " Tales of the Khoja," and 
other Translations. 

Vol. XVIII. contains — "Juliana Horatia Ewing and her Books," 
with a Selection from Mrs. Ewing's Letters. 



PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 



MRS. EWING'S WORKS. 

SNAPDRAGONS: a Tale of Christmas Eve; and OLD FATHER 
CHRISTMAS. Illustrated by Gordon Browne, Small 4to, 
paper boards, is. 

THE PEACE EGG, AND A CHRISTMAS MUMMING PLAY. 
Illustrated by Gordon Browne. Small 4to, paper boards, is. 

MARY'S MEADOW, AND LETTERS FROM A LITTLE GARDEN. 

Illustrated by Gordon Browne. Small 4to, paper boards, is. 

LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE ; or, The Luck of Lingborough. Illus- 
trated by the late R. Caldecott. Small 4to, paper boards, is. 

STORY OF A SHORT LIFE (THE). Illustrated by Gordon 
Browne. Small 4to, paper boards, is. 

DADDY DARWIN'3 DOVECOT : a Country Tale. Illustrated by 
the late R. Caldecott. Small 4to, paper boards, is. 

DANDELION CLOCKS, AND OTHER TALES. Illustrated by 
Gordon Browne, and other artists. Small 4to, paper 
boards, u. 

JACKANAPES. With Seventeen Illustrations by the late Ran- 
dolph Caldecott. Small 4to, paper boards, is. 

BROTHERS OF PITY; and other Tales of Beasts and Men. 
Crown 8vo, with numerous Illustrations, cloth boards, 2s. 6d. 

OLD-FASHIONED FAIRY TALES. Foolscap 4to, with numerous 
Woodcuts, ornamental paper boards, 3-f. (yd. 

Library Edition of "Jackanapes," "Daddy Darwin's Dovecot," 
and "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire." In one volume. Small 4to, 
cloth boards, 5^. 

JULIANA HORATIA EWING AND HER BOOKS. By HoratiA 
K. F. Gattv. With a Portrait by George Reid, R.S.A. 
Illustrated by facsimiles from Mrs. Ewing's Sketches, and a 
cover designed by the late RANDOLPH CALDECOTT. Small 
4to, paper boards, is. 



PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 7 

BY G. MANVILLE PENN. 

Crown 8vo. With Five page Woodcuts. Cloth boards^ 

$s. each. 
FRANK AND SAXON: A Tale of the Days of Good Queen Bess. 
CROWN AND SCEPTRE : A West Country Story. 
GIL THE GTTNNEE ; or, The Youngest Officer in the East 
JACK AT SEA ; or, All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy. 
MASS' GEORGE ; or, A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannahs. 
PLANTER JACK; or, The Cinnamon Garden. 
SAIL HO ! or, A Boy at Sea. 

THE VAST ABYSS. Being the Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles 
and his Cousin Sam. 

TO THE WEST. 



BY GORDON STABLES, M.D., CM., R.N. 

Crown 8vo. Illustrated. Cloth Boards. 

BORN TO COMMAND. A Tale of the Sea and of Sailors. $s. 

CAPTAIN JAPP ; or, The Strange Adventures of Willie Gordon. 5*. 

CHILDREN OF THE MOUNTAINS. A Story of Life in Scottish 
Wilds. Ss. 

"FROM GREENLAND'S ICY MOUNTAINS." A Tale of the 
Polar Seas. 2s. 

HARRY WILDE A Tale of the Brine and the Breeze. 3J. 

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE. Tales and Sketches from the Life. 2s. 

ROCKED IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP. A Tale of the Salt, 
Salt, Sea. 2s. 6d. 



8 PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 

BY THE LATE W. H. G. KINGSTON. 

Illustrated. Cloth boards. 

MICHAEL PENGUYNE; or, Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast 
Crown 8vo, is. 6d. 

MOUNTAIN MOGGY; or, The Stoning of the Witch. Post 
8vo, is. 

NED GARTH ; or, Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave 
Trade. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. 

OWEN HAETLEY; or, Ups and Downs. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. 

BOB NIXON, THE OLD WHITE TBA.PPEB. A Tale of Central 
Biitish North America. Post 8vo, is. 

SUNSHINE BILL. Crown 8vo, is. 6d. 

THE CBUISE OF THE •« DAINTY." Crown 8vo, is. 6J. 

THE LILY OP LEYDEN. Post 8vo, is. 

THE FBONTIEB POET; or, Stirring Times in the North-West 
Territory of British America. Crown 8vo, u. 6d. 

THE GILPINS AND THEIB F0BTUNE3. A Tale of Australia. 
Crown 8vo, is. 6d. 

THE LOG HOUSE BY THE LAKE. A Tale of Canada. Post 
8vo, is. 

THE MATE OP THE "LILY;" or, Notes from Harry Musgrave's 
Log-Book. Crown 8vo, is. 6d. 

THE SETTLEES. A Tale of Virginia. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. 

THE TWO SHIPMATES. Crown 8vo, is. 6d. 

THE TWO WHALEBS; or, Adventures in the Pacific. Post 
8vo, is. 



PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 



BY MRS. MOLESWOETH. 

A CHARGE FULFILLED. With Three page Illustrations. Crown 
8vo, cloth boards, 25. 6d. 

A HOUSE TO LET. With Coloured Illustrations. Small 4to, 
cloth boards, 2s, 6J, 

FAMILY TROUBLES. With Coloured Illustrations. Small 4to, 
cloth boards, is, 

FIVE MINUTES' STOEIES. With Coloured Illustrations. Small 
4to, cloth boards, 2s. 6d. 

FRIENDLY JOEY, AND OTHER STORIES. With Coloured 
Illustrations. Small 4to, cloth boards, 2s. 6d. 

GREAT UNCLE KO0T-T00T. With several Illustrations. Small 
4to, cloth boards, 2s. 

LETTICE. With Three page Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth boards, 
is. 6d. 

OPPOSITE NEIGHB0UR3, AND OTHER STORIES. With Coloured 
Illustrations. Small 4to, cloth boards, 2s. 6d. 

THE ABBEY BY THE SEA, AND ANOTHER STORY. With 
One page Illustration. Post 8vo, cloth boards, is. 

THE LUCKY DUCKS, AND OTHER TALES. With Coloured 
Illustrations. Small 4to, cloth boards, 2s. 6d. 

THE MAN WITH THE PAN-PIPES, &c. With Coloured Illus- 
trations. Small 4to, cloth boards, 2s. 6d. 

THE THIRTEEN LITTLE BLACK PIGS, AND OTHER STORIES. 
With Coloured Illustrations. Small 4to, cloth boards, 2s. 6d. 

TWELVE TINY TALES. With Coloured Illustrations. Smalt 
4to, cloth boards, 2s. 6d, 



PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 



MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATIONS. 

ft 4 

ALONE AMONG THE ZULUS. By a Plain Woman. The 
Narrative of a Journey through the Zulu Country. With 
Four full-page Illustrations on toned paper. Crown 
8vo Cloth boards I 6 

ANIMAL CREATION (THE). A Popular Introduction to 
Zoology. By the late Thomas Rymer Jones, Esq. With 
nearly 500 Engravings. Post 8vo Cloth boards 7 6 

ANOTHER MAN'S BURDEN. A Tale of Love and Duty. 
By Austin Clare. With Four page Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo Cloth boards 3 6 

ART TEACHING OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH (THE). 

With an Index of Subjects, Historical and Emblematic. 
By the late Rev. R. St. John Tyrwhitt, author of 
" Lectures on Symbolism." Post 8vo Cloth boards 5 O 

AUSTRALIA'S HEROES : being a slight Sketch of the most 
prominent amongst the band of gallant Men who 
devoted their lives and energies to the cause of Science 
and the development of the Fifth Continent By C. H. 
Eden, Esq., author of " The Fortunes of the Fletchers," 
&c With Map. Crown 8vo ......Cloth boards 3 6 

BEHIND THE CLOUDS: a Story of Village Life. By 
Grace Hamilton. Printed on toned paper, with 
Three full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo... Cloth boards I 6 

BELFRY OF ST. JUDE (THE): a Story. By Esme 
Stuart, author of "Mimi." With Three full-page 
Illustrations on toned paper. Crown 8vo... Cloth boards % 6 

BERNARD HAMILTON, Curate of Stowe. By Mary E. 
Shipley, author of "Janetta," &c. With Four fu'J- 
page Illustrations. Crown 8vo. ............. ..Cloth boards 3 



PUBLICATIONS OP THE SOCIETY. 

s. 

BIBLE PLACES ; or, The Topography of the Holy Land. 
By the Rev. Canon Tristram, D.D., LL.D., F.R.S. 
New edition, brought up to date. With Map. Crown 
8vo Half bound 5 

BIASES OF CTILVEREDGE (THE). By C. E. M., author 
of " St. Anne's Court." With Three page Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo • ..Cloth boards 2 

BRITISH BIRDS AND THEIR HAUNTS : being a Popular 
Account of the Birds which have been observed in the 
British Isles, their Haunts and Habits. By the late Rev. 
C. A. Johns, B.A., F.L.S. Post 8vo Cloth boards 6 

lURGLAR'S ACCOMPLICE (THE). By Beechwood, 
author of " Plucky Jim." With Three page Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo Cloth boards 2 

BY LANTERN LIGHT: a Tale of the Cornish Coast. 
By Austin Clare. With Four page Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo Cloth boards 3 

CAN SHE FORGIVE! By E. S. Curry. With Three 
page Illustrations. Crown 8vo Cloth boards l 

CHEMISTRY OF CREATION (THE) : being a Sketch of the 
chief Chemical and Physical Phenomena of Earth, Air, 
and Ocean. By Robert Ellis, M.R.C.S. A new 
edition, revised by Professor Bernays, F.C.S., &c. 
With numerous Illustrations. Fcap 8vo.... Cloth boards 4 

CHILDREN OF THE MOUNTAINS : a Story of Life in 
Scottish Wilds. By Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N. 
With Five page Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards 5 

CHRISTIANS UNDER THE CRESCENT IN ASIA. By the 
Rev. E. L. Cutts.D.D., author of "Turning- Points of 
Church History," &c. With numerous Illustrations. 
Post 8vo Cloth boards 5 

3HRYSSIE'S HERO. By Annette Lyster, author of 
"Fan's Silken String," &c. With Three full-page 
Illustrations on toned paper, Crown 8vo.,,. Cloth boards <3 



PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 



S. d. 



CEUISE OP THE " DAINTY " (THE) ; or, Rovings in the 
Pacific. By the late W. II. G. Kingston. With Three 
page Illustrations. Crown 8vo Cloth boards I 6 

EMMA'S MAEEIAGE. By F. E. Reade, author of "A 
Wife from the Country." With Three page Illustra- 
tions. Crown 8vo ....Cloth boards 2 O 

EVENINGS AT THE MICEOSCOPE ; or, Researches among 
the Minuter Organs and Forms of Animal Life. By P. 
H. Gosse, Esq., F.R.S. A new edition, revised by 
Professor F. Jeffrey Bell. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards 5 o 

PAN'S SILKEN STEING. By Annette Lyster, author 
of *• Northwind and Sunshine," &c. With Three full- 
page Illustrations on toned paper. Crown 8 vo. Cloth boards I O 

FIFTH CONTINENT, WITH THE ADJACENT ISLANDS 
(THE) : being an account of Australia, Tasmania, and 
New Guinea, with Statistical Information to the latest 
date. By C. H. Eden, Esq., author of "Australia's 
Heroes," &c With Map. Crown 8vo. ...Cloth boards 5 o 

PLOWEES OF THE FIELD. By the late Rev. C. A. Johns, 
B.A., F.L.S. New edition, with an Appendix on 
Grasses, by C. H. Johns, M.A. With numerous 
Woodcuts. Fcap. 8vo Cloth boards 5 © 

POEEST TEEES. By the lata Rev. C. A. Johns. Post 8vo. 

Cloth boards 5 O 

POETUNES OP HASSAN (THE) : being the Strange Story of 
a Turkish Refugee, as told by Himself. By the author 
of " Our Valley," &c. With Three full-page Illustra- 
tions on toned paper. Crown 8yo Cloth boards Z 

PEOZEN ASIA: a Sketch of Modern Siberia. Together 
with an account of the Native Tribes inhabiting that 
Region. By C. H. Eden, Esq., F.R.G.S. With Map. 
Crown 8vo. « Cloth boards $ 



PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. M 

f. 4 

HARRY WILDE. A Tale of the Brine and the Breeze. By 
Gordon Stables, CM., M.D., R.N. With Three 
page Illustrations. Crown 8vo..... .Cloth boards 3 O 

HERE AND ELSEWHERE. The Fortunes of George 
Adams in Town and Country. By the Rev. Harry 
Jones, M.A. Crown 8vo Cloth boards 2 O 

HEROES OF THE ARCTIC AND THEIR ADVENTURES 

(THE). By Frederick Whymfer. Ninth edition, 
revised and brought up to date, with Illustrations and 
Map of the Arctic Regions. Crown &vo.... Cloth boards 3 o 

HISTORY OE INDIA, from the Earliest Times to the 
Present Day. By L. J. Trotter. With a Map and 
Twenty-Three Engravings. Post 8vo Cloth boards 6 q 

INVASION OF IVYLANDS (THE) By Annette Lyster, 
author of " Fan's Silken String," &c. With Three page 
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JACK AT SEA; or, All Work and no Play made him a 
Dull Boy. By G. Manville Fenn. With Five page 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards 5 

JACK BERESFORD'S YARN: an Ocean Romance. By 
Harry Collingwood. With Four page Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo. Cloth boards 3 6 

JEWISH NATION (A HISTORY OF THE), from the Earliest 
Times to the Present Day. By the late E. H. Palmer, 
M.A. With Map of Palestine and numerous Illustra- 
tions. Crown Svo Cloth boards 4 

KING'S WARRANT (THE) : a Tale of Old and New France. 
By A. H. Engelbach, author of " Lionel's Revenge," 
&c. With Three full-page Illustrations on toned paper. 
Crown 8vo ....Cloth boards 2 C 



*4 PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY, 

a. J. 
STATURAL HISTORY 07 THE BIBLE. By the Rev. Canon 
Tristram, author of "The Land of Israel," &c. 
With numerous Illustrations. Post 8vo Cloth boards 5 o 

OCEAN (THE). By P. H. GOSSE, F.R.S. With Fifty one 

Illustrations. Post 8vo Cloth boards 3 o 

OUR NATIVE SONGSTERS. By Anne Pratt. With 

Seventy-two Coloured Plates. i6mo Cloth boards 4 o 

OUR VALLEY. By the author of " The Children of Seeligs- 
berg," &c. With Three full-page Illustrations on toned 
paper. Crown Svo. .,.,. Cloth boards 2 o 

PHILIP VANDELEUR'S VICTORY. By C. H. Eden, 
author of "Australia's Heroes." With Three page 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards 2 O 

PICTORIAL ARCHITECTURE 0? THE BRITISH ISLES. 

With about 150 Illustrations. Letterpress by the Rev. 

H. II. Bishop. Royal 4to. Cloth boards 4 o 

PLANTER JACK; or, The Cinnamon Garden. By G. 
Manville Fenn. With Five page Illustrations. 
Crown Svo. Cloth boards 5 o 

PUNCH, JUDY, AND TOBY. By M. Bramston. With 

Three page Illustrations. Crown Svo. Cloth boards 2 o 

QUEER CHUMS: being a Narrative of a Midshipman's 
Adventures and Escapes in Eighteen Hundred and ■■ 
War Time. By Charles H. Eden. With Four page 
Illustrations. Crown Svo. Cloth boards 2 6 

RICE RALTON'S RECONCILIATION. By the Rev. E. N. 
Hoars. With Four page Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 

Cloth boards 3 & 



PUBLICATIONS OF THE. SOCIETY. 15 

f. d, 
ROSCORLA FARM. By Mrs. Henry Clarke, M.A. With 

Four page Illustrations. Crown 8 vo Cloth boards 3 6 

SAIL HO ! or, A Boy at Sea. By G. Manville Fenn. 

With Five page Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards 5 o 

SEA TON COURT. By Maud Carew. With Three page 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo Cloth boards 2 6 

SHAVEN CROWN: a Story of the Conversion of the Surrey 
Border. By M. Bramston. With Three page Illus- 
trations. Crown 8vo .Cloth boards 2 O 

SIEGE PERILOUS (THE) : How I learnt to sit in it. Being 
the History of his Selfish Youth. By Rocer Jamieson. 
Edited by Austin Clare. With Four page Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo Cloth boards 3 6 

SILVER CORD (A). By the author of "The Squire of 
Bratton." With Three page Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 

Cloth boards 2 

SLAVERS AND CRUISERS : a Tale of the West Coast. 
By the late S. W. Sadler, R.N. With Four page 
Woodcuts. Crown 8vo Cloth boards 3 o 

SMITH'S WEAKNESS: the Simple Tale of an Uphill 
Fight. By G. Manville Fenn. With Three page 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards 2 o 

SOME HEROES 0? TRAVEL; or, Chapters from the History 
of Geographical Discovery and Enterprise. Compiled 
and re-written by the late W. H. Davenport Adams. 
With Map. Crown 8vo Cloth boards 5 o 

SQUATTER'S HOME (THE). By Marianne Filleul. 

With Three page Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards 2 o 

STORIES FROM ITALIAN HISTORY. By B. Mont- 
GOMerie Ranking. With Two full-page Illustrations 
on toned paper. Crown 8vo Cloth boards I 6 



16 PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 

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"WHISPERING TONGUES." By Phcebe Allen. With 

Three page Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards I 6 

WIPE FROM THE COUNTRY (A). By F. E. Reade. 

With Three page Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards 2 c 

WILD GWEN. By Marie A. Tassell. With Three page 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo Cloth boards 2 

WITH WIND AND TIDE : a Story of the East Coast. 
By the Author of " The Dean's Little Daughter." With 
Three page Illustrations. Crown 8vo Cloth boards \ 6 

WRECKED LIVES; or, Men who have Failed. First and 
Second Series. By the late W. H. Davenport Adams. 
Crown 8vo Cloth beards, each series 3 6 




LONDON: NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C. J 

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